Flight from the Mystic Moon
by Amaterusa
Summary: Hitomi is a single mother and has safe guarded her cards from her daughter. The death of Hitomi's husband Amano has left a rift between the women... and Keori steals the once protected cards. Fate turns its eye from Hitomi to her daughter and when the gateway of light takes Keori into it's embrace, Hitomi can only tell her 'Find Van'
1. Chapter 1

Flight from the Mystic Moon

I was never allowed to touch my mothers cards. She said it was the one thing she needed to hold onto if she was to keep 'everything together'. So, when I was tired of not being allowed to touch a simple deck of cards, I stole them. I knew once she figured out they were missing she would find me and she would yell. Also that she would beg for them to be returned.

"So these are the mysterious cards your mother gets all upset about? Jeeze… there's nothing special about them… I can buy this set of tarot cards anywhere… sorry to say, but your mother's a loon…" Akari was my best friend. "Keori… she's gonna freak when she finds out you stole them." Akari looked at me, she wasn't so innocent as she think of my well being…

"Yes, but that's too bad, she'll have to eat her words if she wants them back…" I never looked at Akari directly when we got on the topic of my mother. Akari was my bestfriend, but she knew nothing when it came to my mother.

"Why don't you leave them at my house… she'll never find them that way." I shook my head. There was no way I was leaving the thing that was going to get me in huge trouble at someone else's house… What'd be the point of taking them if I wasn't going to get to admire them?

"Maybe tomorrow… I want to play with them tonight, once mother's gone to sleep." I took the cards and placed them in my backpack as we both rounded the corner of the street.

"Uh-oh…" My house was the fifth down the way and already I could see my mother standing outside the door… she was waiting and her hands clenched her skirt tightly.

"I guess I'll leave you to deal with Hitomi…" Akari… was never so innocent as to think of my well being…

"Hello mother…" I walked up the stairs and stood before my mother, one step below her. My head reeled to the side as her hand made impact with my cheek. This was a first and we both knew it. Mother had never struck me before. She was really serious about these stupid cards.

"Where are they Keori! Where have you put them?" Even if I'd not taken them, my fascination with them as a child was enough for her to blame me.

"Where is what mother?" She raised her hand again and I could see her cheek puff out as she began to grinned her teeth. She did not hit me again. Of all the things my mother had become over the years... abusiveness wasn't one of them. Mother loved people to much to inflict that on them. Father had been the same way.

"You know what I am talking about… Don't play your mind games with me…" As mother grabbed my shirt sleeve I stepped into the house. The door slammed behind me and she let go. "Tell me where you've put them…" She was always like this when it came to those cards… I'm not so sure why… I think after years of having believed in such things, she actually started to trust in them… Then again... she was right about a few 'predictions'. Father had asked her not to play with them while he was in the house. I think he believed in them a bit too.

When I was 11, my father died. Mother and somehow knew in advance and had me stay with my grandmother. So I did'nt know he had died until a month later. I'd asked where he'd gone and she would just say 'away'. When I asked Grandmother, she was kind enough to tell me the truth.

"I don't know where your cards have gone mother… I've been at school and it's too much of a hassle to walk home to misplace paper and ink… I'm not so cruel." And I was telling the truth. I'd never come home during lunch to ruin my own time just to toy with her stupid cards. Instead, I had taken them before I'd gone to school.

"Tch…" Mother turned around and stormed up the stairs. The door to her room slammed shut and then I could hear her toss things around.

"She's seriously out of it…" How can a girl be allowed to stay in the presence of a mentally deranged mother … shouldn't some kind of authority step and intervene? "Dammit…" I kind of started to feel bad when I could hear her begin to cry… not enough to tell her I had her cards though.

A few hours passed and I ended up having to make dinner for my-self. Mother never once came out of her room and I knew tomorrow I'd have to clean it up for her. I walked up the stairs and glanced at her door as I passed then closed the door to my own room. Walking over to the window I opening it and threw my school bag at the bed.

"Dammit…" The top flap opened and a card from mother's deck slid out. I grabbed it and threw it back in my bag, but again it slid out. Mother had once told me the significant of a single card 'straying' from your hand. So I grabbed the card and flipped it over and laughed. "The fool, un?" Pity I knew nothing about tarot, I figured my mother was crazy enough without me following suit.

I pulled the rest of the cards out and the card at the top was the three of cups. I slide the cards into my pocket so even if mother looked in my room, she'd never find them. As soon as I did so though my eyes began to tingle and i heard fists hammering on the door of my room.

"Keori! Let me in! Hurry! Don't' touch those cards, please!" I started at the base of my door and could see my mother's shadow and a very bright light. Instinctively I took the cards back out of my pockets and threw them under my pillow before opening the door.

"Mother?" The door swung open and I saw only saw her outline. My room was too bright.

"Where are they?" I tried to focus on her, but I couldn't see her well and I was mind-shocked by the tingling in my head.

"Under the pillow…" I answered her just to make her happy. I could hear her tossing things around and then silence. "Mother…?" Something cold touched my hand and then my hand was forced closed.

"I tried to tell you! I TRIED TO WARN YOU!" I wanted to call my mother's name. I wanted her to stop the feeling over being hung upside down. What was going on? The light was too bright and my eyes teared while they sqeezed shut.

"Mother?" I felt lighter suddenly and when I opened light-stunned eyes I was looking down and was grasping my mother's hand, she was also crying. "Mother?" I didn't understand what was going on.

"Find Van if he still lives! Tell him to send you home!" I couldn't hear her at all and her hands began to slip from my own.

"Mother!" She let go. She stood with her hands gripping her skirt again. She looked like she had some how seen this coming even. She just stood there as the light around me consumed me and left me in oblivion. And in the back of my mind I said it.

_You never should have touched those cards._


	2. Chapter 2

Flight from the Mystic Moon

I was not cold or warm… in truth… I wasn't sure of anything except that I wasn't where I was supposed to be and even that thought lasted only a few seconds. As if the world moved on by whim or will everything slowed, and by everything I meant the light. The light began to fade and when I looked down all I saw was trees and the night sky… from where I was I'd never seen so many stars… it was so beautiful that a tear dipped down my face before falling. That could have also been from my eyes stingly like you wouldn't believe.

The light disappeared completely and I fell to the ground the last few feet. I rolled on to my side gripping my head as it exploded into sharp pain that lanced through my entire body. The small weight of something falling next to me stopped the pain and in the pitch black of some odd place I picked up what my mother had left in my possession. It had not been her cards as I had expected somehow, but it was her pendant. She had shown me a number of times how it could keep perfect time.

"What the hell?" I looked around and knew for a fact I was nowhere near my home… There was no forest like this within miles and when I peered into that star spackled sky once more I realized I was no longer on earth. "I've gone mad…" Because when I looked up into that sky I saw the Earth. It hung on the black-drop of space next to sparkling gems of stars. "I can't be on the moon…" I knew that much, the moon, our moon was a dead satellite in the sky. Nothing green let alone a forest of trees and grass and air to breathe which I realized belatedly was not an issue where ever it was.

"Van… Find Van." Mother had said it. It had to be a person… a man… she also said he might be dead. And how did she know about where she was going? How did mother know I would come to a place where she knew people? Had she been here before? Had they come to see her? Again the pain throbbed in my temples so I rubbed them till the pain subsided. "Van, Van, Van…" I repeated the name to make sure I didn't forget or say it wrong… the only thing that bugged me was this.

If I was stuck on another planet… so close to earth, how come no-body's mentioned it on earth, on TV, in books? And worse yet, if it was another planet, this Van person could be any-where and nowhere close… if he still lived.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" My voice carried over the trees and I could hear it echo far off… and I could see how very alone I was. There were no lights in the distance from houses or people of any kind… everything was black. "Fuck!" I stood up and grabbed the closest thing to me and threw it as far and hard as I could. Behind my eyes the need to cry stung so I kicked and screamed at nothing to try and stop it. But I couldn't; it was ok though… no one was here on this planet so far… and what if my mother was wrong… what if this is a lifeless place… the entire planet…

It was then that I screamed. I screamed and cried and tossed more random things around to stop the feeling of uselessness.

"I want to go home! Don't leave me here, alone, in this place mother!" I blamed her… it was all I could do. I had the clothes on my back and that was it… I didn't even have my wallet. "What do I do? What do I do?" A faint flicker caught my eye and I saw the pendant mother had given me shine. It hung loosely from my shirt where it had gotten caught up with my shirt which was fraying now. I picked the thread away and lifted the pendant to my face, before me it swung slightly, its pink gem gleaming at me. "What can I do?" It continued to swing back and forth before it stopped sharply then swung hard to my left.

My mother, Hitomi, called her talents with this pendant dowsing. I was not so lucky to be apt with anything like she said she was. I did know that standing here was no good. The only thing that would change was the light once the sun had come around.

I tucked the pendant into my pants and walked in the only place I could thing to go; where the necklace had directed me. My shoes slowly became soaked as dew from the cool night seeped through them and they began to making loud sucking sounds. I pulled them off and continued on foot and in the distance the sky lightened; a flaming red.

And old saying jumped into my head… it was supposed to be for sailors and people who dealt with the ocean, but…

"Red sky at night; sailor delight, red sky at morn and sailors take warn…" A deep set feeling of ill happenings settled on me and a chill which had nothing to do with wet feet crept into my bones. As the sun continued to raise it turned the color of fresh blood and when my feet took me over the nearest hill, I could see the comparison. I could smell blood on the air as a wave of death washed over me. I stepped away and wretched my gut into the grass and stopped only when nothing remained in me. The urge to see if anyone was alive was overwhelming and I ran calling out for anyone.

I witnessed death first hand that day. When I had turned around a house and passed another, a little girl gripped my ankle. I had almost kicked her and screamed, but I bent down and realized the color of blood was not from the sun. She was soaked with it and it was still warm. 'Save me…' Shesaid to me. I pulled my hands away from her to sooth her, but they were drenched in blood. By the time I saw she was falling back, she met with the earth and rolled over. Her back looked as if she had been attacked by some huge beast, an animal. But the cuts were too clean… it had been done by blades… by fine tuned steal… not by teeth or claws.

"Saints above… have mercy…" I dragged myself away and when the smell became too much again I threw up. I had to get out of this place. So, when I'd stopped heaving, I ran. I'd never run so hard or so fast, this day, this morning I could have flown. That was when the earth began to shake… it made me run only faster, but the sound followed me, the sound was horrifying and I could almost hear my bones grinding against each other with how much the ground quaked. Instinctively I flung my-self to the ground and curled up as much as I could.. and the earth stopped its rampage. When I began to look up a flash of grayed silver plunged into the ground just inches from my face.

The adrenaline running through me was all that kept me focused. That was what allowed me to peer up the massive pillar and to stare at my death. Instantly I regretted ever having touched my mother cards. I regretted not believing her… I regretted not screaming bloddy murder.

"Mother… I want to go home now…" Nothing happened. No beam of light came to take me home… I did not wake from this nightmare. "Please…" My eyes locked on to something that my mind could not comprehend. I did what I had left to do and finally screamed.


	3. Chapter 3

Flight from the Mystic Moon

Steam enveloped my body and thick cranking sounds make me twitch in fear. The grinding of gears and mist coming off of… whatever it was make me numb. A heavy thud and I could tell something was coming close to me. My instincts told me what to do and I followed them; I ran. Even then I could hear the footsteps behind me… they ran faster than I did which made panic spark.

"Get away from me!" What else would I have said? "God dammit, go away! Don't touch me!" I didn't even finish telling whatever chased after me to leave alone before I was knocked painfully to the ground. I rolled away and the sky spun, but it didn't stop me from crawling in zigzag's to get away. The taste of dirt and blood was in my mouth.

"Stop!" I stopped. Human dialect again… I could have cried thankfully if hands hadn't ripped me up from the ground and left me dangling inches from the earth; and I wasn't a short person.

"Don't touch me!" I kicked the person and my foot landed on something hard. It rang when I made contact and I couldn't help think this person was not human. My foot fricken hurt.

"I said stop." The voice was not angry… If I knew I was on my planet, maybe then I'd have cried.

"Mother…" I didn't cry… it was a sad and pathetic call for something and someone out of reach.

"Open your eyes." I hadn't even noticed my eyes had been closed until he said something. The low toned voice had to be male… if anything.

"Don't hurt me…" I hated myself for begging. I felt sick and even then I thought my stomach would end up on the person holding me up.

"I promise." I was set down and I noticed heavy breathing and opened my eyes. Gods the normal sight before me had never seemed so fantastic, a human… a man… nothing more. He breathed heavily from what I assumed was chasing after me. I didn't realize in my panic just how far we had run until now. I almost gagged then when my mind returned to the giant that loomed over me before. "Are you alright? Are you a survivor here?" I looked back and recalled the blood and threw up again while nodding.

Would he have believed me if I said I was from a planet in the sky? I wouldn't' have, so I decided I was now a survivor from whatever had happened here. When the man questioned me I told him my mind was blank and it hurt to think back. I told him I remembered only the blood and that I was looking for my mother. It wasn't a hard truth to sell.

"You'll be ok… Let's head back now and I'll get you some food and care." I followed mindlessly. I was mentally empty… everything up till now having been too much until we crested a hill and I looked once more at what set fear into my bones.

"No!" I grabbed him and ripped him back while flattening myself to the ground. "Are you not blind? Do you not see that thing over there?" I yelled\whispering at him. I could have hit him then, but he only looked at me oddly.

"That? That right there?" He looked back at me like I was insane. "That is mine. Scherezade is my Guymelef. What is your name girl?" It seemed not knowing what that monster of a thing was made me look like the guilty party here and I wasn't about to give him my name.

So I made the mistake of giving him my mothers.

"Kanzaki Hitomi." His face did not seem to like my lie at all and he stood up and tossed me over his shoulder without a single word.

"Let me go, let me go! Are you insane? Don't touch me!" And the necklace dropped from my pants pocket. My stomach lurched as it fell and glittered on the dew covered grass. "Wait my necklace, please don't leave without it!" Thankfully he stopped. He bent down with me still over his shoulder and I set my hand back to take it, but he never put it in my hand. He stared at it and then back to me.

"Where did you get this, Hitomi?" My blood ceased to flow in my veins; his tone was deadly cold.

"It's mine." The world stopped turning and I looked up at my planet thinking I wasn't ever going to see it again. He saw what I did and looked back at me.

"Who gave it to you?" How did he know? Then again how else would I have gotten it? I could only have received it, stole it or bought it and he knew… he knew I was given it.

"It was my mothers." So what? What was that going to tell him? He tossed me down and clutched my necklace in his hands then bent over to glare at me.

"Your mother? That doesn't sound right 'Hitomi'." He swung himself up into the giant which remained still before steam frothed down once more and the gears returned to life. "Welcome Kanzaki Hitomi. This is Scherezade, my Guymelef and I am its master Allen Schzar, knight of Caeli of Asturia." His voice echoes from the machine of sorts and its hand picked me up along with the ground around me. "Welcome." I didn't like what he said to me and even less how he said it. I believed then that I was going to hate this 'Allan' fellow very much no matter how much like my father he looked. A blonde devil in a knight's guise was what he was and I had no idea just where he was taking me. All I could do was curl up in the massive hands that held me and try to stop the sounds screaming in my mind.

"Mother… " Belated I thought of father as well as the ground thundered beneath the monster's heavy feet as it ran with ease away from the planet hanging in the sky. I hated this place.


	4. Chapter 4

Flight from the Mystic Moon

The ground was cold and I was flung head long against into a bench. That guy stood before me and now had a army of men standing behind him; which only set my mind to guard the only thing I figured a bunch of men might want. This was the worse planet… this hidden world in a sky earth could not see.

"Tell me your name once more." I wanted to cry, scream, and kick 'Allen' for all it was worth and to me, it might have been the world.

"Kanzaki Hitomi." The men behind Allen all stared dumbfounded and one came forward and tilted my head back which I promptly shook away from. I actually wanted to bite him.

"She doesn't look like her. Allen, this some kind of joke?" Allen grinned which set a chill over me.

"I'm not sure, why not ask her? She's the one that started the 'game'." This wasn't going in a direction I liked. It was dark and smelled of oil and grease and then there was the pack of men like ravenous dogs biting at my heels… it was too much.

"Ok then, let's see where and how the game ends." Someone from the back came forward and picked me up off the ground. I was so frightened I couldn't move and when he tilted his head this way and that to look at me… I almost, almost had the energy to kick him where it counted, but he turned with me still in his hands and walked away with me, the others just watching. My heart pounded like a fright-train that had gone off course.

I was going to die here. Mother had seen it.

"Don't!" His name came back to me. The name my mother told me to find! I could only figure it was some one that would be safe. Safer than here anyhow… "Van!... Van, he will find out and you will all regret this! I guarranty it!" The man stopped in his tracks and Allen came up from behind and looked at me very, very closely.

"Van-what?" My hands shook as they reached out and slapped him. The red forming on his face was enough for me before I was thrown painfully to the ground.

"Van, Van, Van!" I repeated this and coughed as I bite my lip. I thought I was going to die here. "She told me to find him!" My tears were hot on my face… I felt bruises on my legs and side that I knew would hurt for weeks. I had been run down, strung up, interogated and for what?

"Who told you to find Van?" Allen was so cold he was frozen. What did it matter? If I was going to die, I would at least let them know my name and my mothers. Those names would haunt them all when I was gone and I would know peace when they were all mad.

"My mother you half-wit!" Again I was dragged up from the ground and was set this time on my feet. Allen's face bent over in front of mine, his cheek bright red. God he was fricken tall.

"Half-wit." I couldn't help but grin.

"Did I stutter 'half-wit'?" I figured if I was to die, I might as well go out with some spunk. Allen chuckled and pushed me into a chair then took one him-self.

"And what is your mother's name? Hitomi?" He was an asshole and he was clearly proud of it.

"My mother's name is Hitomi Kanzaki. I used her name seeing as you'll never meet her and I don't know you freaks and rightfully so. Some knight." I loaded every word with venom and spite. This seemed to be interesting to Allen and his cronies though so too.

"And what name might we call you then?" He seemed slightly less likely to hurt me. Only slightly though.

"Keori Kanzaki. Daughter of Hitomi and Amano Susumu, what's it to you?" Allen seemed surprised somehow.

"Where are you from?" One of the men closed the door while the others gathered in closer… it was rather claustrophobic in here now. They looked ready to pounce on me and...

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you, so why bother?" A man from the crowd snickered.

"She's nothing like Hitomi…" It must be a common name here. Allen ignored the other mans comment and asked again which I only sighed at as I tried to hide the fact my heart was going to burst from fear.

"That planet up there, you see that moon?" I pointed my fingers out the window at my planet, 'the blue planet' and our sister moon. "I came from there. My mother lives there and that 'necklace' that you _stole_ from me, she gave me before…" I stopped when I remembered how I was ripped from my bedroom and how my mother had simply let go of my hand. My chest ached.

"You said you're from the Mystic moon?" Allen stood up and once again I was hefted over his shoulder.

"No one touches the girl." The men groaned as he slammed the door closed and walked down very narrow hallways and opened another door. "Kanzaki Keori. Daughter of Amano and Hitomi and from the Mystic moon your mother once named 'earth'." I was stunned as he sat me down nicely and brought a wet cloth over from somewhere and wiped my face from the dirt and blood. "I have done you wrong and I will make this up to you. Your mother would… be most displeased I am sure… It is odd that you, her daughter are here now. What of Hitomi?" This prick knew my mother? I wanted to tell him she was going to kick his ass, but if he did know her, it was unlikely he'd believe me.

"She's… ok I guess." That was all I could say. Mother and I didn't really see eye to eye. "Who is Van? My mother told me to find him." Allen pushed back blonde hair that was brighter than the sun and had an rather uncanny face like my fathers.

"Van. Van Fanel is the King of Fanelia and is a… friend of your mothers. She and him have a past as do your mother and I. We all had grown close while she was here and before she returned to your earth and to father. I remember having been called that once when I met her. I am sorry I treated you ill, after you said your name was Hitomi and you bore her necklace I feared you were someone with bad intentions. I would not have guessed you as her child and ... you are her child... I will make this up to you. Forgive me." He almost seemed like a knight now when he wasn't frightening the life out of young people.

"I would, but I find it hard to believe my mother would associate with some one that beats young women. In fact, I know it for a fact that she wouldn't' have." I seemed to have hit a mark somewhere and he stood up, hurt on his face. "My mother hasn't so much has gone on vacation in over 20 years." Allen's face paled.

"I will make this up to you. Please excuse me now. Also, do not speak your mother's name or show anyone your pendant. Do not mention the Mystic moon, if any ask, you are to direct them to me." He left and the door closed, he did not lock it. This place was weird and upside down, they kidnap first and ask later then beg for forgiveness for being madmen. Mother would never have been a hundred feet near people like this. And if these men knew mother I could only imagine what 'Van' could be like. But how could they know her?


	5. Chapter 5

Flight from the Mystic Moon

The room was warm and didn't smell at all like grease, oil or dirt of any kind. I sat numbly in the chair Allen had set me in and had not moved once in over an hour. I wondered if something was wrong with me. The door stood before me, unlocked and here I was, staring at it, unable to move, run, anything.

"Excuse me? May I come in?" A voice, soft and sweet came from the other side of the door. Even so I'd almost tipped the chair back in surprise.

"Uh, yeah sure." The door opened and a young woman stepped in. She wore a rather stunning dress and I wondered having finally caught on to some minor things which set me of kilter. Her clothes were old fashioned and in the 20 years that I've been alive, mother has never so much has gone on vacation without me. When did she meet these people? How did she get here? My head hurt…

"I have brought you some clean clothes and have filled a bath for you as well. I have been asked to assist you with anything you need and to answer any question I might be able to answer. You will have to forgive me as my… memory has not been well for a while." Was everyone that was remotely pretty on this planet blonde? The girl was not as vibrant as Allen, but she too had flowing blonde hair, hers was wavy and curled at the ends though while Allen's was so straight that girls on earth would have clubbed him to death for it. She doubted Allen sat before a mirror for hours with a hot-iron to get the effect though.

"Where am I?" I didn't mean to ask it so straightforwardly, but it came out that way anyways. The woman smiled and sat down on a bed which would have been much more comfortable than the chair I was stuck to.

"You are about 3500 Costas above Gaea's surface. We are in a… fortress that was built on wandering rocks. When you bathe you will see what I mean. I was told your name was Keori and your mother was Hitomi. I know Allen said to say nothing to others, but if you see your mother again, please send my regards. I am thankfully to her though we did not know each other for very long." If earth had women this nice it would be a much better place. More boring more likely, but better.

"What's your name?" I ignored the terms 'Costa' and 'Gaea' and 'flying'. I shouldn't have passed out before else I'd know where I was right now. Or at least I'd have an idea.

"I'm sorry. My name is Celena. I'm Allen's sister." I nearly choked on my own tongue. This girl was nothing like her evil brother and so-called knight. What was she doing with all these men too! I was suddenly very aware of myself. I might not be that attractive of a girl, but hell… with what these guys looked like aside from Allen… I was a model…

"I'll take that shower or bath now. If you have time later perhaps I'd like to talk. I'm not feeling well right now." I wasn't sure about the whole 3500 thing, but it sounded rather high up.

"Please follow me and when you finish cleaning, please wear this. You will blend in much better than with the clothes you are wearing now." I looked down at my school clothes and was sure I looked nothing like the rest of the people here. I was a sore thumb compared to the rest of the men and woman before me.

"Sure." She stood still smiling and led me down the halls that if I struck out both my elbows they would hit the walls. She stopped and opened a door and I walked in after a moment's hesitation. I swore if she was cleaning me up to be sold as some slave I'd kill everyone here in their sleep. Wasn't that the way it worked in all those stories on earth. The girl gets whisked away and falls in love or brutally murdered… A shiver ran down my spine thateverything to do with the heavy breeze. Atleast that is what I told myself.

"I will wait in this room. The next room has the bath and there you will find all you need. If you can't find something just ask and I'll get it for you." And just like that she sat down. I hadn't bathed with someone in the same room since I was 5 and it was weird, then again she wasn't in the same room per-say…

"Thank you." I left her sitting in a chair and walked into the next room and stopped. When they said bath I expected a real bath… this things was practically a pool. "Holy shit…" I caught my-self swearing and realized there was no mother here to scold me… it didn't make me feel better as I'd hope it would have.

Watching the door the whole time I slowly undressed and held my clothes in front of me. I backed into the pool which slowly descended into the deep end and even then I could stand above the water line. I lowered into the very warm water and soaked my hair quickly so to keep an eye on the door. The fact that the 'door' to the 'bath' was over eight feet wide I could almost not consider it a door at all. My eyes caught the small basket of assorted glass bottles all filled with pearly liquids of pinks, greens and whites. Each bottle had their own scent and I picked what one smelled the nicest. Not that any of them were smells I could associate from earth and that just made the distance between me and where I should be seem all the larger.

"Are you doing alright in the bath?" Celena's voice drifted in from the next room and I dipped lower into the water.

"Yeah! I'm ok, thanks." I looked over the room and realized then what Celena had meant by the view from here. One wall was all glass and I could see out in the distance where the sun had begun to rise and painted the planet's surface with vibrant colors. You could tell just from looking that this place could never have been earth. Not major cities no matter where you looked… and even the air tasted cleaner having lacked hundreds of years of pollution. This place was pristine. "No it's not..." I corrected my-self quietly. This place was not home and was not better than home. Huge machines I'd never seen roamed the planet and were piloted by men with tempers to be reckoned with. The one village of sorts that I had seen since coming here had been bathed in blood, the only thing that looked the same was the sun from here.

Angrily I scrubbed my-self until my skin turned pink and I washed my hair to the point it was tangled. It would take me a good ten minutes to work them out once I got out and I sighed with my own lack of patients as I walked out of the 'bath'. I saw the towels which were also rather abnormal in size. They were practically bed-sheets, so I wrapped it around me and walked out to see Celena as the dress had more buttons and strings then I knew what to do with. That was when I blew a gasket.

"What the hell are you doing here? Get the hell out!" Allen stood conferring with his sister. If the perve had wanted to he could have been peeping and I wasn't saying his sister was all that trust-worthy seeing as they were siblings.

"I'm sorry, I should have spoken with him out-side." Celena took the blame which pissed me right off and I walked up to him despite being half dressed.

"No, Celena. He should know better and you are not his keeper. I'm sure he's been able to clean up after him-self for years now, get out Allen." I pointed to the door and tried to hide shaking legs. Surprisingly enough he seemed off-put and turned pink at the face. What was wrong with this guy?

"You are right. Excuse me." He closed the door and said nothing. I took Celena's chair as I doubted my legs would support me much longer. But seriously, he had to know I was in here and he just stood there. Do men have not sense of decency on this planet… Then again they don't have much on earth either…

"I have never been before a woman that spoke so forwardly. You speak like my brother, well, like men do. I'm sure if it had been any-one else he'd have left politely, but not because they demanded it of them. You embarrassed him... I've never seen that before." I looked at her like she was crazy. Allen had to be at least mid to late thirties and Celena must have been younger, but she'd never seen him embarrassed… Where they really siblings?

"He shouldn't have been here… he should use his brain more and his… never mind." For some reason talking about Allen with ill intent more than likely would go ill with the sister. Never the less Celena looked at me like I was some kind of movie star.

"It was refreshing to see him put in his place." Celena took on with an interesting expression that only made me smile. For being the innocent looking woman that she was, she had that 'evil' streak that came with being a young sister. Not that I'd witnessed it first hand having no brother or sister, but Akira had an older brother that I liked to pick on.

"Hey Celena… I got a question for you." I tightened the towel around me as my mind started to adapt to a way of thinking I wasn't comfortable with. "Why is it that I'm not allowed to mention my mother's name or where I'm from to anyone other than you and Allen?" Celena frowned and I was a little curious as to why she looked almost sick.

"I'm so sorry. I can't say more than that. About this matter you will have to speak with Allen and when the time comes, with Van of Fanelia. They will be able to explain what I cannot. Please forgive me." I knew it was hard for her. I could see it on her face, she was either a good liar or incapable of it at all.

"It's ok. If you can't tell me about that then I want to know everything you can tell me about Van of Fanelia." Celena held the dress she intended me to wear in her hands and for the first time since I'm met her, which wasn't long at all, I was her smile truthfully and it was that which made me realize.

Something was wrong with this girl.


	6. Chapter 6

Flight from the Mystic Moon

While on the flying air-ship which Allen seemed to run as captain, I keep company with Celena. The room became mine and we dined together and sometimes Allen would join his sister. In a short period of time I came to realize many odd things that I suppose came with being sucked into a beam of light and landing on an invisible planet that thought earth was evil. Something was very wrong with Celena also. Not because she was sweet and polite, but she seemed to lack something that was ingrained in the human race, something she terribly lacked. Allen didn't seem to notice or was the reason she was this way. She lacked nerve and survival instinct. She didn't do things that could be difficult on her own and all the other men on this air-ship either didn't notice or didn't care, but I could see it. She was completely fine with sitting around all the time reading and talking about past events and not ever knowing about things going on right now. It was unnerving; the only use I'd made of her is digging up things on the current King of Fanelia, Van.

"So no-body here is gonna tell me anything I want to know? What the hell is with that? I ask and I know you all know, but will you tell me? I have the right to know! It's my mother! It's my life and it's my planet that no-one is helping me return to! What is wrong with you people?"

This was the argument that had seen me win the approval of the men under Allen's command and had also set me into room arrest with Celena. Allen had stared blankly for a few minutes apparently stunned before picking me up and removing me from the hoots and hollers of the crowd. I liked the crew Allen had. Still didn't like Allen though.

"You are most unlike your mother, Keori. Please do not make a disruption like this again." He said that but I was not allowed to leave to even try. So know I sat looking over a patch work of different colored earth below me. I didn't even know where we were going... Was Allen taking me to meet Van or was I just baggage? I cursed often which Celena found rather interesting along with almost everything else I did.

"If you didn't look like a woman you could easily pass as a man with your tone and speech. Allen is rather shocked with your language so he had to leave you somewhere. I'm sorry you have to stay in this room though…" She was far too nice and I was very tired of hearing her say she was tired, but her conversation gave me an idea; a beautiful one.

"Celena, you have to help me. Your brother won't and I need to return home. Do you know what it's like to have a home and not be able to go back to it? I need to get off of this ship or at least be able to walk around it without being disrupted. Can you help me? Will you help me?" The look I got then told me I was screwed.

Or so I thought.

"I think… I can help. I would want to get home and I would do… whatever it took to get there. The most I can do for you are to bring you clothes that might help." I grinned. I doubted anyone imagined I was so tired of being pushed around, that the hair my mother was so proud of and hung down to my tail-bone, was about to be chopped off.

"You bring me those clothes Celena and that would be great." I was getting out of this place.

By the time Celena had returned to the room, Most my hair lay on the floor in long lengths of brown. I stared into the mirror and looked back at myself with green eyes. My mother's eyes, I found it funny that here every one said I looked nothing my mother, yet on earth they all said I looked nothing like my father, Amano. So when I pulled on the mens clothing Celena brought I thought I could pass as a stranger if not for my voice. Only thing left was to get Celena to agree to take me where I needed to go and I knew an airship would have something along the lines of what I needed.

"Celena? There's just one last thing I need from you. I just need to you to lead the way and I will do the rest." I didn't feel bad at all for asking these things of her until later, but by then, what was done, was done.

With Celena at my side and dressed like one of the men, I passed complete unstopped. No one looked twice and I didn't, thankfully, run into Allen. I knew that a ship that flew had a cargo area and I knew every ship had some sort of safety precaution incase something went wrong. With my heart beating painfully in my chest, feeling like any moment Allen would grab me and take me back, I looked for and found what I needed. All at the same time though my body felt weak and sick; I was not a fan of heights in the slightest. In the corner hanging the length of the cargo hull were parachutes… or what I figured was.

"What are these?" Celena told me and I almost jumped with joy. "Great." I took one off the hook and Celena stepped away.

"What are you doing? Do you plan to jump?" She didn't think I was serious. Hell, I didn't think I was serious.

"I can't stay, Allen has no intention of helping me and I want to go home. Thanks for the help Celena." Celena took another step away and I peeked out the window. I knew if I so much as opened that door I'd be sucked out. I just needed to pluck up the courage to pull the lever to open the door.

"Please reconsider. This is not the time or place to do something like this." She was far to nice. Anyone else would be screaming their fool heads off or jumping at the chance to knock me down. I almost felt bad that she might get in trouble for what I was about to do.

"I can't. I hope to see you again though." I placed my hand idly on the lever and breathed like there wasn't enough air. A loud clank and sound of Celena's voice made me turn my head back and I listened to her talking to someone on a phone-type device.

"Yes, in the cargo hull. Please hurry. I don't' know if she even tied it right." If that was Allen I was in very severe trouble, but that was only if he could catch me. The only issue now was that my body refused to pull the door lever.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck…. Come on, just do it!" I yelled at myself. I must have looked insane. In the distance down the hall and even above me I heard the rumbling sound of feet on steel and iron catwalks. Men's voices calling out to each other and all of them talking about 'the girl'.

"Come on! Just do it! God dammit!" I was shaking, the pack on my back was heavy and the grip I had on the release cord was sweaty, my other hand white knuckle gripped the lever still unable to move.

"Keori!" Shit. I cranked my head and Allen stood next to Celena about 40 feet away. He waited. If I pulled the door open and they were any closer, they'd be sucked out with me. They stayed away and I could not be caught. It was a stalemate and I couldn't open the door. "Step away from there! Don't you dare do this!" I laughed at him. Loudly and nervously while my body shook beneath me, I was going to throw up soon if I stayed like this; that was how fearful I was.

"You think I was going to wait around for you to do what you want? I want to go home Allen! That evil planet of mine, I want back!" I screamed at him as more men gathered around to watch the situation.

"She won't do it, Allen. There is no way she is going to jump from this high up in the sky." I ignored that.

"You know nothing about this place! Do you think you can just jump and make it on your own, just like that?" Allen held Celena behind him to defend her like I was some kind of monster, and his arguement had a point.

"My mother did fine! Don't you think I can manage? Do I look that weak to you!" I was nowhere near as lucky as my mother. Allen still had my pendant and I had no cards to foretell the future… what was if they worked.

"Your mother, Hitomi was lucky to have made it as she did. It was pure chance she returned home." The magic word. He told me what I feared most, that no matter what I did, I still might not ever be able to return home.

I had tears on my face then, being told I would not or might not be able to go home. My mother and father, my best-friend and even my cat were beyond my grasp and in my mind I saw them all fade into black. Even now I was forgetting what my mother looked like.

"I will go home!" I put too much force into that sentence and pushed down on the lever before knowing it. Next thing I knew was I was surrounded my nothing. The ground rushed up to crush me in its grip while the sky refused to let me fly. I could do nothing but scream. I knew, and not from experience, that I couldn't pull the cord too early or too late. Perhaps I should have thought on this more… I couldn't hear my voice, my screams were carried away before my ears could catch them and as fell I figured I was close enough to the ground.. or at least I hope I was.

I yanked hard on the cord. Nothing happened and I continued to fall steadily towards my death. A large bang sound echoed above me and a black spot fell from the airship, so small that I could not make it out. I yanked on the cord again and again and nothing happened.

"Pull damn you, pull! Let go, you stupid parachute; work!" Something flashed in my mind and I pulled once more on the cord which released and caused me to be lifted higher as wings of cloth billowed out and caught air. I could have cried, laughed, screamed, or jumped for joy if I thought my legs could hold me up. When I looked back up I saw a figure I was not impressed to see and wished this thing would land nicely, but faster.

In the sky Allen's 'Gelmelef' dropped down at a frightening speed to catch up to me and I felt new fear. There was no water below me, only the thick, dense green of trees as far as the eye could see. And it was rushed up to meet me me far faster than I was able to cope with.

I continued to scream.


	7. Chapter 7

Flight from the Mystic Moon

I couldn't fee any-thing; my legs, my arms, my head. Nothing felt attached to nerves. I thought by now I should have thrown up. And to make things worse I was unsure what I wanted less; Allen to find and catch me after landing or landing. The sight of the world rising up to meet me was… hard to deal with. Having what could only be estimated as an thousand tonne machine chasing my through hell and high water was terrifying. But from where I hung, suspended in the sky I could tell I would land far before Allen did. The only issue now was…. Well landing. There were no grassy plains to turn to, no water to land in. Just trees as far as the eye could see. I was going to die wasn't I?

"Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god, OH GOD!" That's the sound you get out of me when I'm about to crash and die at speeds a hell of a lot faster than I'd like but slow enough to not completely kill me. I managed to slam through the top of the trees and miss the bigger issues at hand. I was yanked and jolted as the parachute got caught on branches then ripped. My head was about to smash head long into the truck of a tree, but a final yank saw me suspended at least 30 feet in the air with nothing but the ground to stop me.

"Ok…. Ok. Ok. Ok." I managed to realize repeating myself made me feel at least still sane. Or at least let me now I was in fact still breathing. My hands as hard as I might to release my-self from my cocooned state, shook and would not stop. I fumbled with the knots that held me and failed miserably for what seemed like forever. Then the ground shook.

"Oh god." My mind refused to acknowledge anything beyond my own existence. That meant for right now, Allen did not exist, but this did not stop me from trying to hurry it up. "Come on, come on, come on! Please!"

"Well, seeing as you asked so nicely…" I tried to turn me head around to see behind me, but I couldn't. The voice that spoke to me made no sounds other than his voice.

"Please, hurry." Some leaves above me feel down and when I looked up and face looked back down. And then I dropped about ten feet. "Fuck!" And stopped once more. The voice above laughed down at me and I was not so impressed as he was.

"Need more help?" I twisted and pulled on string and clothe, but still couldn't get loose. A branch stuck out close to my hands and I reached out for it and the sound of ripping clothe made my skin run cold.

"No!" The harness I was tied to fell without me and I hung in the air being held by the arm by a man that was not really man.

"I doubted you could fly." I could only shake my head. I was glad in a way that he was so astute.

"Help me up?" The man/animal/beast/thing lifted my up like I didn't weight 140 pounds. As soon as my feet landed on the branch and walked over and clung to the tree trunk like it was a life-raft.

"You seem scared of heights…" I scoffed and tried to hold down the bile threatening to come up. "But you came from the sky…" I looked back and the man stood with knees bent staring up at the air-ship I'd just fled from.

"Can you get me safely to the ground? Please?" Even my voice shook now. The man tilted his head when he looked at me and for some reason I did the same thing.

"Sure." I was going to say thank you, but he ripped me from the tree, tossed me over his shoulder and dropped like a rock towards the ground. Obviously I screamed bloody-murder. In 10 seconds he dropped 20 feet grabbed onto another branch and swung forward. I clung to him like I was a bat out of hell and he laughed while swinging back and forth.

"Can you put me down now?" I yelled at me and he turned his head back a bit and smiled.

"You'd have to let go first." I almost, almost out of need to do something, bit him. But I didn't and instead dropped the last few feet to the ground where fear commenced and reared its ugly head. I threw up everything I've ever eaten in my life.

"I wonder… that guymelef in the sky coming for you?" I looked up and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. To make matters worse the ground shook and when I looked down to make sure it wasn't just me, a pebble by my hand jumped around with the quakes.

"Hide me. Hide me!" The man dropped down from the tree and stood up perfectly normal. He was normal, his voice, his body, aside from being hairy and rather phenomenal agility.

"He after you?" He looked up and over me as if he could see beyond normal human sight as well.

"Yes, yes, please. Hide me!" He looked back down at me for a second to stare at me mildly interested before smiling again.

"Sounds fun." The ground shook harder and harder as I imagined Allen's Guymelef running at top speed, trees falling behind him in his wake. "You're not from around here are you?" He winked at me and pulled me on to his back before taking off. "You can explain later."

At speeds one would never expect to travel while on a living person/thing/man/beast we stood on a ridge looking down from where we'd been only minutes before. I was still latched on to his back when Allen's Guymelef scowered the area I'd just been in and still would be if it wasn't for this guy.

"Thank you." He laughed again at me. Maybe with was that I was too tired from everything, but this guy found everything to be some sort of amusement.

"So, you have a name miss renegade?" Renegade… he was right too.

"Uh, yeah. Ah… Celena." It was the only female name I knew was from this planet so I used it. "You have a name?" Allen's guymelef stopped and looked in a circle, he passed right over me like I wasn't even there. It was great, so terrifying and so relieving to have been overlooked.

"Ragen." I almost didn't hear him. "So, what are you going to do now?" I slide off of his back and bent down till me knees were level with my chest. I stared at my torn clothes and ripped knees to my feet.

"Fanelia. I need to get to Fanelia." I stood up and ran my fingers threw my hair. I could feel the dirt all of me and the feeling of finally being completely alone.

"Well you are a long, long away from there. Do you even know where you are?" I shook my head before even thinking of an answer. "Well you're in Freid and you have a good walk ahead of you. Who about… I treat you to some food and some place to clean up?" I stood up and looked at him like he was a shinning knight.

"Why would you do that for me?" He simply shrugged his shoulders and smiled while he walked next to me and leaned on my shoulder. He was rather tall, just like Allen was.

"You're interesting."

"Am I? Would you mind answering a bunch of questions I have for you?" He nodded without caring one-iota and in the distance I watched as Allen gave up his search for me and followed after the air-craft in the sky. "Because I need to know a lot of things and I feel like I'm running out of time for something."


	8. Chapter 8

Flight from the Mystic Moon

"No, no, no... no good." "You're going to drop me!" "T-That tickles, cut it out!" and then finally. "You know what? Just... just put me down. I'll walk."

Icouldn't believe after almost 30 mins I couldn't fingure out a decent way of hitching a piggy back ride on the man/creature/beast thing.

"How about like this?" Ragan held out his arms like he was about to take a infant into his arms.

"You want to carry me. Princess style? Uh-hu. No way." It was not happeneing.

"It will take much longer a time to walk otherwise. It time not important?" I didn't like how he was using my own words against me.

I turned and looked at him and for the first time I saw him as a person. I walked to him and stopped between his outstretched arms.

"Do what you have to... The world will not see you weep." I don't know how he knew or even why his words brought it out in me, but I cried on command. I was alone, on some weird planet and the only person who even seemed to care was a strange man how held me against him with one hand head and the other wrapped around my shoulders. At that moment I might not have existed and I was just fine with that.

Until the earth screamed.

Ragan looked up to the sky and both of us saw it. Allen's airship hung in the sky and was all but on top of them.

"They know you are here. I do not know how they tracked you. I was careful." He didn't mention how he hadn't heard the ship creep up on them and that alone bothered him. Needless to say I was rather distracted when he lifted my off the ground and tore of to gods only knew where.

The sound of trees bursting apart and the earth being crushed beneath metal made me shut my eyes.

"Hurry... he;s coming right this way." I only whispered, but I had been heard.

That was when Ragan stopped.

"Ragan!"

A horn blew and from the trees and hills and burrows and nothingness is seemed, more of men and women like Ragan showed themselves.

"I grant this child sanctuary."

Every single person dropped into position in a circle around him and me. They barely gave me a second glance or questioned Ragan.

"Give me the girl." Allen stepped out form the tree line and the front panel of the Guymelef dropped down. "She escaped our airship and..."

"She is no longer your concern." I dropped down low and watched from the hidden place made out of people and shadows.

"I can help you. Keori, why did you run?" I didn't say a word. In all actuallity I was holding my breath waiting for something to happen.

"Her silence speaks vollums of what she thinks of your aid." When had Ragan become so strong sounding. When had the almost childish attitude melt away?

Allen reached into his pocket then and something sparkled in his hand.

Her pendant.

It was pointing directly at her and that was when Allen saw her.

"Then make sure she has this..." He stepped forward to leave the Guymelef but spears rose to stop him. He was resigned to handing it to one of Ragan's people.

He waited and so did I. It wasn't until he was long gone that I allowed my self to emerge from the cirle to people.

"You are safe here." For moment I didn't answer.

"He could have had me..."

"Celena?" Ragan bent down and looked me right in the face.

"He could have cut down every one of you if he'd wanted to. He could have found me anywhere I went and my pendant would have shown hin the way." I turned the pink gem over in my hands and stared at it like some traitorous enemy. I wasn't sure how, but he had made it work for him. It had pointed me right out... but he had given it back.

"Would he have taken you to Fanalia?" Ragan seemed concerned and edgy. It was enough to snap me out of my own thoughts and back into the real world. And in the real world every one whom had stepped in to defend her was staring her down.

"Ragan... why are they glaring at me?" I would have tried to step away if they hadn't been all around me.

"Because they know. The know you are from the mystic moon. That and because I have just sworn an outsider under clan chieftan law.

"And what does that mean?" I didn't have a blinking clue about what was going now.

Ragan signed slightly and looked at me so deeply I felt like I might have been missing a peice of clothing like a shirt or pants.

"As of a few moments ago I was the unofficail heir. When I claimed you under clan protect I envoked my rights as clan leader... The reason they look at you now is because you intrigue them and frighten them... How is it a girl who is not even of this world change or in this case fore that hand of a errant chieftan. You are... mystical to them." I stared and only every ten worlds sunk in. If that.

"So, your there king?"

"In a sorts..."

"You didn't want to be."

"No."

"Why then?" He smiled and almost looked like a cross between and man in love and a man protecting something fragil like a child... it was not mornal.

"Why no?" He smiled and lifted me up. "To me!" And he walked away from Allen and the airship n the sky. The entire crowd followed.

Then pendant that had still been active suddenly dropped; lifeless. Its energys spent.


	9. Chapter 9

Flight from the Mystic Moon

Van passded and not one of his advisors thought it was wise to brouch the reason behind it. The paper in his hands was crinkled with multiple attemps to purhaps damage it beyond recognition, but that was unlikely.

"'Three days.' Allen said and now she is missing." Images of his past whirlwhinded through his mind. "She should have been here." He was moody at best. He wasn't even sure if the girl was whom Allen claimed.

"Hitomi..." Her name had been ruled as anathama. Not in hatred, but to rebuild Fanalia. But know her daugther was here...

Was that even possible. Hitomi had been just younger that him and now her daugther of the same age was here... "Impossible."

He knew very well though that time ran differently between Gaea and the Mystic Moon. That much though? Would he ecognize her if he saw her? Did she carry the same gifts as her mother?

"Why are you here?"

"You called the meeting you majesty..." Van glared at his advisors.

"Oh, get out with you." They all fled... except one.

"Master Van." She stood higher than Van and carried an almost regal composure. "What does this girls coming mean? Why, if Gaea was in trouble, not just bring back Hitomi?" Cat ears flicked with twitch and Van could feel the tension in the air.

"She did her part..." He knew Hitomi and even her grandmothers visit to Gaea. Neither ever returned twice and all had purposes regarding the furture. And each visit with increasing importance. "I want her found, Merl."

"Yes, my lord."


	10. Chapter 10

Flight from the Mystic Moon

A week had gone by and I was so busy... For a person who had not ties to friend of family, riding the curtails of a clan leader was time demanding.

Ragan was often unavailable. You;d think the sole chief of a people would have some free time. Instead he was getting taught this and that.

"This is how you rule.""This is how we deal with this and that. ""You cannot speak so freely..."

"You can't say what you mean?" Ragan sat cross-legged with his chin in his hands. Some times I wondered if he just liked to listen to someone for once talk about something not important.

"No. Else I may offend some-one." When ever he spoke to me he gave his undivided attention. Unlike humans on earth, a conversation was made up of hand gestures and facial expresions... A lot of a conversation was not made up of words. But here,with these people, they almost stared.

"But you are their king." I was being obstinate. I didn't like that he had been forced into this position for me. Even though I was thankful, I felt guiltly like you wouldn't beleive.

"No. I am their chieftan. We have a king and his rule superceeds mine. We live in harmony." That was the other thing I found he and the rest of his people did often. They didn't say mro than what needed to be said. A 'yes' or a 'no' was often enough to make them happy, but Ragan didn't seemed to think 'harmoniously' about it in the slightest.

"You don't like being a cheiftan... Why don't you leave?" I left what I really wanted to say out of it.

"It is hard. That is why I fled so many years ago. But they need me..." People had a sense of purpose that the inhabitants of earth didn't have either.

"They seemed to be doing fine before you came."

He smiled and called me over to him. I sat down right in front of him and he leaned forward. his nose almost touched mine that was how close he was to me. _He's going to kiss me!_ I was red from hair tip to toe nail.

"Why do you color?" He couldn't be serious. They couldn't be that oblivous on Gaea.

"Your too close."

"Too close?"

"To me."

"How so?"

"We are practically kissing me!" I stood up and glared at him while I could. As soon as he stood he would tower over me by a good foot and a half. Again he smiled.

That irked me.

"So you thought about me kissing you. Even though I did no such thing?" He finally stood. I felt cornered.

"I did not think about that."

"So what one does is different then how they feel and act?" My brained kicked into high gear.

"This is a life lesson? Don't act on what you don't know? Don't presume?" His smile widened. He was actually a very cute guy know that that thoughts was driven home into my head.

"In a sort, yes." He opened his arms and I walked into them. A hug was somethng completely different here as it seemes. It was a way of saying hello and goodbye amongst our human interpritation.

As Ragan settle his arms around me I wondered why it would have been to kiss him. It was a passing thought seeing as I never had been kissed before. I looke dup at him and gacve him a frown.

"Your going back to work aren't you." It wasn't really a question. I knew.

"Yes. I will finish soon and we will eat together." He sounded like my father had when I was a kid. It wasn't until his hands held the sides of my face in place that the thought altered forever.

It was just a passing thought.

His lips were so soft and so light on mine that I wasn't even sure I was seeing what I was seeing. I barely even notied he'd let go and left me standing there.

Hours later I forwent diner and recalled hearing him say something was he walked by me. That grin ever so evident on his face.

"Now you can freely think of me kissing you." And I did just that. In fact I couldn't get him out of my head and that kiss... not even when I managed to fall asleep.


	11. Chapter 11

There was no choice now. It was now or never and if I didn't do it now, I never would. So as the night wound down for the third time since kissing Ragan, Keori bolted. The timing was right, no one was watching and I booked it for the closet treeline. I was lucky to have the gift of mother's legs and lungs because I didn't stop until my breath burned in my chest and my arms felt like goo.

"Breathe… breathe…" I hid behind a tree expecting to be chased down by one of the catlike people that were Ragan's tribe. Instead there was nothing but utter silence. And that was the problem. Not a bird sang, not a cricket chirped and Ragan would not have left her go… not when she was so interesting… But she couldn't stay. It had been a while now and they had not so much as even spoken about her needed to get to Fanelia. "…breathe…" _I'm not alone… I know it…_ "Come out. I don't plan to be followed by anyone or be taken back so come out." I waited for a few seconds and nothing happened. I had either two choices. Pretend that I believed someone was there and they came out or pretend and make a fool of myself to nobody. "I'll wait…" I sat down and crossed my legs even though I wanted to put as much distance between me and Ragan… Ok, not him himself, but his people. I needed to find Van. He had a way to get me home.

"You are a very particular woman. You knew I was here. How?" A man that was not Ragan dropped out of the tree directly above me. He nearly scared the actual piss out of me.

"I didn't. It was unlikely that Ragan would let me escape or that I wasn't seen leaving out right though… I'm surprised that I got out… even if you were following me." The man laughed then.

"You escaped only because I helped you to escape… Ragan told me to be your guide to Fanelia." I looked at him confused as hell.

"Why would he tell you to help me escape and how did he even know I was going to run and why did I even need help? Why couldn't I have just left?" Had I been standing I might have backed away, being that I was still sitting I could only watch as the man knelt down to look at me eye to eye.

"My people, would not have allowed you to leave. You are a woman from the mystic moon and have brought stability to the people. You have given us our chieftain back and he openly has feelings for you. They would not have allowed you to leave… Ragan asked me to help you when you decided to leave. That is his way for you." I could only gap at him.

"How do we get to Fanelia and what is your name. I can't keep calling you cat-man." He smiled and tilted his head slightly as him affirming something in his mind.

"I am Kaen, Head to the guard set around Ragan and now your personal servant. I will always be within sight of you, whether you see me or not. Ragan has told me of you need to bath alone. This cannot be allowed outside of the protection of my people… You will have to learn to coup." He silenced my rebuke with a finger before grabbing me and jumping right up into the tree as high as the tree went before stopping. It was then that a group of five men walked right to where we had just been. Kaen no longer needed to silence me with his hand released me. It was clear without hearing them, that they were after me for some reason. Perhaps Allen had sent them to hunt me down.

"They were here… the man from the tribes that had been sent to guide her must have taken her into the trees. From there they could move at an unbelievable pace. We have to move and quickly if we wish to keep up with them." The men didn't stay long and I stayed in the tree silent until Kaen said it was safe to move and talk.

"They were after me… who are they? Why are they following me?" Kaen stooped down and picked me back up. I held on his neck from his backside and he detoured away from the men.

"I do not know, but they know more than they should… We will have to be careful with you." He peered back at me with a smile and started to actually jump from tree to tree.

"Why are you doing all of this? Why are you not trying to drag me back to your people and cage me like the rest seem to want to?"

"I am not the rest of my people. I do not wish to remain in the village, but it is their way. Ragan knows this. I asked to guide you for two reasons. The first gets me into the world. The other… is because you are interesting. Whatever draws Ragan in also does so for me." I would have let go had I not been 20 feet in the air.

_He likes me like Ragan likes me… that's what he just said… He doesn't like acting like his people act… He said he liked me… This world is messed up… I'm confused._

"How long will it take to get you Fanelia?" Kaen continued his leap frog thing and spoke like he wasn't doing a blasted thing.

"It will take at least 2 weeks to get to the boarder that it Freid and Fanelia. From there at least another month if not more; It will depend on how much you can handle travel. We will avoid the mountain pass that it Fortona temple and go for the sea. We shall follow the sea coast until we reach Castelo castle, the capital of Fanelia. This is where you will met with the King of Fanelia… if you can get in to see him. Since the war with Zaibach 3 years ago, the King has been rebuilding his country from ruin. It is said the only people to see the King outside of events held at the capital would be his advisors… You might have a better chance going to Asturia and meeting the King there and gaining an audience." I could hear everything he said and it was clear that Kean wanted a piece of the world he was not getting from his own people.

"Where did you learn all of this?" The forest was quickly changing from thick green foliage to patches of open fields were trees became few and far between.

"I have listened to travelers and read books that were forbidden amongst our people. I have memorized maps and names of places. It is why Ragan allowed me to accompany you. He would not allow just anyone to follow after you." He soon dropped to the ground and I slid off his back.

"Hey… how do you plan to get down from here?" I had walked to what I thought was a little hill or something of the sort, but it turns out I was wrong. Before was a huge cliff that sat abreast a large body of water.

"This is part of the sea, we are just passed the main city of Fried, Godashim. It would take too long to go around and Ragan has told me that you all but fly when you have to… How do you fly, Hurin?" I backed away from the cliff and gave him the look that said 'you are fricken insane'.

"I cannot fly. I jumped out some kind of aircraft with a parachute… It stopped me from falling too quickly and dying… And who is Hurin?" Kean smiled and picked me up. I tensed as he looked down at me with sparkling eyes.

_He is fricken insane!_

"In common tongue 'hur' means poison or toxin. 'in' is a honorable word for lady. You are so very interesting and I find myself happy with you, but I fear like everything… too much of such a thing is dangerous." He suddenly burst towards the cliff and I started to scream. I hoped his ears burst and bled. I prayed his landed hard and got an angry pink belly from it. I hoped he ate recently and got a knot in his stomach and OH MY GOD!

The cliff fell away and air streamed past my face carrying my tears away. Kaen laughed as I squeezed onto him like he was going save me.

"I will fucking kill you!" My words got carried away much like my tears as the water below rushed up to meet me.


	12. Chapter 12

Van stood overlooking his country. It has grown so much, healed so much in 3 years.

"Why are you here?" His gaze left the horizon which should silhouetted Allen's airship by now, by it remained empty and he was without news. More time had passed, the girl had not been found, Allen had not returned and he could not imagine why another girl from the mystic moon had shown up. "Dammit…" His feet carried him away from the window and out of the room. He felt the west wing and stepped inside the cavernous room that housed Escaflowne. "You did this. Didn't you?" He glared at the Guymelef that had ceased to move since it was last operated to get in this very room. That had been about a month after Hitomi had left.

"Master Van…" Van turned to Meryl and ran a hand over his face. "I miss her as well… What will we do with this girl that claims to be her daughter? Can we send her home somehow?" Van doubted it and made it clear.

"The gateway between the worlds is worked on demand only when king needs to be chosen. I am King. Why it opened and brought this girl to Gaia I do not even know. The way should have been destroyed with Zaibach and Emperor Dornkirk…" Van walked towards Escaflowne and touched the pink crystal that housed its heart. It remained in active which Van knew it would.

"Damned thing…" His fist slammed down on it and from Van's back burst out wings as white as snow.

"Master Van!" Meryl watched as he flew up to the rafters of the building and out onto the roof. He only went there when he wanted isolation and she felt horrid knowing that was what he needed. "Be safe… Be patient. We will all figure this out…" She left Van to breath and think while she made plans to track the girl down herself. Van would be angry, but it had to be done. Allen was not getting results and whatever pending issue that was threatening Gaia now, this girl was the clue and key.

.

She had learned that from Hitomi.


	13. Chapter 13

"I… hate you…" Kaen pulled himself out of the sea tide dragging me with him. He dropped me to the ground and I attempted to peel my wet clothes from my skin in a way that screamed failure. "If you ever…"

"You do not fly quite so well as you fall and scream." I could only glare at him as I was too heavy from all the water to get up and hit him. And yes, I would have hit him.

"You, are a bastard… How could you do that! How did you know there wasn't a bunch of rocks just under the water surface? We could have died!" I was then forced to turn away as Kaen began striping every article of clothing he was wearing. "A-Are you crazy!"

"You cannot wear such clothes still. It is cold tonight." I was lifted off of my feet when I felt a cold hand grab my shirt from the side and pull up.

"W-What are you doing!" He set me down so that I was sitting on his knee and my shirt was hiked up over my head with only a bra on. "Stop!" The shirt went flying.

"You will freeze. You see? I am also without clothing." I was most definitely not looking. "I will start a fire, we will dry our clothes and wait till morning to move again. By then those men following you will only be half way down to us and well will still have a head start."

I stood up having forgotten that I was being followed. That I had escaped a cat-people village, escaped Allen and his giant machine… That I was alone on some planet without even my mother… I forgot until Kaen pantsed me and started building a fire. There wasn't much I could do at that point though. I was cold, homesick and was wearing only a bra and underwear. Thankfully they were plain black and not some neon, lacy pink. Else I might have acted on the wish to die of embarrassment. And it wasn't like I could go and get my clothes. He was hanging them up with being all but naked so he wasn't a target I was willing to attack let alone touch.

.

The sun couldn't rise fast enough, but it was alright as soon as the clothes were dry. Kaen pulled some weird fruit that she had tried a few times in the village that kind of tasted like dragon-fruit. I ate one to myself while he ate almost five. I could only think that somehow, at almost seven feet tall, that he was a growing boy.

"So, from here you have to decide which was we are going to go." Kaen had stopped sharpening the dagger he had and looked at me.

"Which way?"

"Yes. Do we continue on straight to Fanelia or do we go to Asturia and beg an audience with the child-like King?" His wrist rested on his knee, the dagger hanging loose from long fingers.

"I'm not sure… You said that Fanelia was very cautious with their King… I want to go straight there, but… I think if I can see the King from Asturia and get some kind of letter… I might be able to see Van personally that way… I guess I have no choice… it will take longer, but I have a better chance by going to see this child-King."

"So be it. We will travel along the sea coastline until we hit Astrain. It is a small coastal village that we will be able to purchase our passage directly to Palas, the capital of Asturia. From there we will gain an audience with King Chid and then make way to Fanelia to meet with King Van posing as messenger from Asturia. This is a good plan. Little to go wrong here."

"Wait a second…"

"_This is Scherezade, my Guymelef and I am its master Allen Schzar, knight of Caeli of Asturia."_

I shivered and swallowed while I checked to see if my clothes were dry yet. They were still damped.

"Hurin, what is it that bothers you so?"

"What is a Guymelef?" Kaen looked startled and amused that I would know such a word despite that it was one of these things that had driven Ragan and I to the village to begin with.

"The Guymelef are a series of creations made by the ancients. The Atlantians made them for some unknown purpose and though the ancients died out, they left the Guymelef behind. Only a handful remains today; one is mastered by the King of Fanelia, The Escaflowne and it is most curious of all the Guymelef. Another is piloted by…

"Allen Schzar and knight of Asturia…. His Guymelefs' name is Scherezade…" Kaen walked round to see my face.

"Who is it that you know this much, Hurin?"

"That man that chased Ragan and I? That was Allen and his Guymelef." Kaen now understood the scope of everything going on.

"Why does a knight of Asturia want the strange woman from the mystic moon? Why did he chase you?" I couldn't explain. I didn't even know myself.

"I don't know. My mother came here once before… Her name was Hitomi Kanzaki…" Kaen's hand smothered my words in an instant.

"Silence. You must not speak that name here… What you say and speak are dangerous things… This much I will tell you, the name you mentioned in anathema here… you must not speak it. The woman you mention was said to have been one of the ancients come down to punish Gaia for its sins 3 years ago acting through the machine city of Zaibach…. We must wait to make a trip to any place now. I must know what it is that you know before I can take you anywhere. To take you to Asturia would mean facing Allen. To go to Fanelia with your speech and knowledge… you would be imprisoned because you do not know what you can speak aloud…" Kaen pulled the still wet clothes from the branch by the fire and told me to get dress even though the sun was still down.

"I thought we were going to wait until morning?"

"We cannot wait now. I fear the men that chase you are more than as I assumed. I must find Dryden Fassa… What you say has been very similar to a writing the man published after the war against Zaibach. He may well be your best chance now of doing anything… he is a wealthy man and what you say may be enough to interest him into helping you." He slid the leather belt around his waist after dressing and turned to me. I was still trying to pull my pants up so he put out the fire and tossed the remains into the sea.

"How long will it take to find this guy?" At that Kaen smiled.

"Of all the things in Gaia that are easy, this will be the simplest. I assure you; somehow, this man already knows you are here and on the run. If we are in luck, he is searching for you as we speak…" As soon as I had managed to pull the damp clothes on, Kaen tossed a blanket over me like a cap and swung me on his back like I was nothing more than a bag of socks. "We will travel fast to avoid as much trouble as we can… Ragan should have told me there would be this much to do… I would not have asked as much of him as I did…"

"What do you mean?" I could see him smiling as I forced my head higher to see where we were going.

"Had I known that I was going to have an adventure and see the people I will and go to the places I am, I might not have made him pay me for babysitting…"

"How much did you make him pay? His smile grew wider.

"Enough to buy one of those houses they have in Asturia by the sea. I had asked to see just how much he cared for Hurin, but when he told me it did not matter… I took what I did, but he should have just told me the truth."

"And what is the truth?"

"Ragan told me, that money did not matter where ever life was concerned… I did not know then that 'life' meant both life as in 'breath' and life as in 'what you do while breathing'. It did not matter to Ragan so long as he did what he could for Hurin." I dropped my forehead down on Kaen's shoulder and stared at the dark wrinkles of brown weave that was his shirt. I had not realized that Ragan had been 'that' attached to me… and that I had run. But he knew I was going to, that I had to and he even helped me; had given one of his strongest men to help me even to find my way home.

"He does know that I am trying to find a way back to the Mystic Moon right?"

"Does love stop because it cannot touch? Does love stop because it cannot speak? No, Love does not know time, or death, it does not know distance or even change. The only thing love knows is loss. Should Hurin not find a way home, she will be broken. If Hurin does not find Van, she cannot go home. If Hurin cannot get into Fanelia she cannot find Van. Ragan is doing what Ragan can. To help his love whichever way he can."

"Shut up Kaen…." I couldn't take it anymore. People didn't act like this one earth, didn't talk like this on earth and we seemed all the more stupid for it. I could have said I loved someone with all of my heart and not done a single one of the simple things Ragan had done so far for just me. The people here were so pure in thoughts and actions, they didn't have the ulterior motives that blinded people from my planet… and yet it made everything so much harder to deal with.

"Do not think too much on this… I will do what I can for you." That only made it harder. Because Kaen was acting on Ragan's behalf and was doing it without begrudging me. If anything, he was thanking me for the trouble, the hassle and risk of being caught with a girl from another planet who was the daughter of the woman who had been written down in history as anathema for almost destroying life on Gaia.


	14. Chapter 14

The following three days went in a blur until we reached the port village of Astrain. Little passed between Kaen in words. We ate together, traveled together and on those nights were it was just too damned cold we even slept together. I was forced to make due with him being present while I bathed, but he was always in sight and with his back turned. I told him if I ever caught him peeking then I would return to his village then and report it to Ragan personally. Kaen had taken that as a person blow and had been rather quiet since. It wasn't until we were on the ship that we both managed to converse as normally as possible with the other.

"This ship will reach the capital Asturia in how many days?" I leaned against the railing of the giant wooden ship and wondered if I would get sea sink.

"It will be a good 8 days… 10 if we run into bad weather. Is Hurin in a better place now?" I nodded despite our decision to remain on course to Palas. It was highly unlikely to be found out by Allen and seeing as this Dryden fellow was a constant in Asturia in his attempts to win the Princess of Asturia over, Millerna.

"So what do we do for eight days while stuck on this floating piece of wood?" Kaen moved over and touched the side of his head to mine, almost in an affectionate kind of way.

"We speak little aloud. This floating wood has ears and we have been being listened too since we boarded. It is a chance, a small chance, but a chance none the less that whoever is listening is, has been sent. We should try and rest as much as possible in the confines to the ship to avoid any trouble… come Hurin." Kaen took my hands and walked with him, head down to avoid gawking at the others one this deck of the ship.

Once inside the and inside our small room we sat and spoke in whispers almost too quiet for the other to hear.

"I must give this to you, Hurin." He shoved a pouch at me and motioned with his hands to hide it inside my shirt. I ended up having to tie it to the inside of my pant, but it sufficed.

"What is this?" He did not say out loud, but it was obvious when he flashed some different colored coins at me from his hand.

"Should ever we get parted…" He motioned again with his hands to say 'never out of sight'. "When we land ask for the easiest path to the 'dancing flower'. It is a brothel. You must ask for 'The merchant prince'. Do not fear any who would try and bother you. Simply tell them you are a gift for the merchant and they will leave. Even if he is not present, they will give you a room and send for him. More than likely before you even tell them your name… If asked you will tell them your name is Millerna. One way or another, Dryden will come." A sinking feeling dropped like a cold hunk of ice into my stomach then. There was too much planning. Too many 'if's'.

"Who are those men outside?" Again Kaen gave her the 'you know too much for one not from this place' look.

"I am not sure… but I am concerned. They look to be men from the city of Basram. But if that is true, then they would have had to have been sent almost the day you came from the Mystic Moon… Too soon. The odd thing is that it was the woman that eyed you so very carefully… like she could see your oddities with your very back turned and your mouth silenced."

"A woman… What did she look like?" Mother had only ever mentioning one woman before… it was one thing I remembered because it was the only girl she spoke about and it was right before father told mother to stop with the cards…

"She was 5"9 with hair tucked into her head gear. She was lean and fit as well, with a steel blade on her left side. I would guess from her looks though that she is of Friedan decent from her looks." His hand rose to my mouth and I kept quiet.

"I have food for this evening's meal." He motioned for me to get the door and I did so only because the voice on the other side of the door was of a child's.

"Thank you…" I took the tray and tried not to give the poor boy the evil eye. I failed and he walked away rather dejectedly." Kaen snickered at me as I slide the door shut.

"You do not have to suspect everyone on the ship, Hurin." He took the tray and took the water flask and drained half of it right away.

"… You're not very helpful Kaen… I'm going to give you a new name as well if you cannot call me by mine. Perhaps I will call you… baka-neko…" His head tilted with his confusion. "It means stupid cat." He laughed and worked again on his blade.

"That will work only for you. Everyone knows what I mean when I call you 'Hurin'. No one will get your joke, but you and I…" When I grinned he understood that was the entire point of calling him 'baka-neko'.

"Where you live… Is there a person who wishes to claim you?" I spit the water I had just swallowed in his face.

"W-What? What is with you people asking such questions? Does no one have privacy on this blasted…. Place…" I had almost said planet, but I managed to keep that to myself.

"Is such a question asked between two not private?" Again his head tilted. I could only imagine my hands around his neck or bashing his head in…

"Well, yes and no. Yes because it is between you and I. No, because I do not know you very well and that is a very… umm. You know what? No. It's just no." I shoved the tray away from me and slide the doo back open. "Follow me. Go ahead, but if I so much as see you on this ship I will jump ship and swim to the coast." I was impressed when he believed my empty-threat. I was also pissed off that I said it because he looked hurt. _I am such an ass…_

On the deck I sat apart from everyone else. I started at the one thing everyone else didn't gawk at and that was the stars. Without the light pollution that earth had the stars just came alive. They shone like no other place on earth would have seen them and it was the most beautiful thing I had seen since 'beaming up' to Gaia.

"Okasan… Otosan…" It finally hit me in full force. I could feel it the moment I looked at the stars. I wanted my mother and my father. I wanted my fake-friends and my bedroom with the music and pictures I hoarded. I wanted it all back. I didn't want to be chased by guys that looked like my father and look for a man that had told the world my mother was a curse. I wanted to go home.

.

.

.

.

From the room Keori had left a bright light shone. The pendant broke free from its pocket in the bag Kaen had been carrying around. It ate away at the fabric and shot out of the bag and vanished into the night sky unseen by all, but the woman and the man that stood outside the room from which the pendant had just flown.

.

.

.

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"Meryl!" Van tore down the hallway and beckoned for his advisor to no avail. She was nowhere inside the confines of the palace so far and every servant had been woken to track her down. "Meryl!" He ran outside and slid to a stop as something crashed through the roof of the building containing the Escaflowne. "Escaflowne…" Van burst through the entrance and his breathe stopped in his chest as a very familiar pendant hung over top the heart of the Escaflowne.

.

And it was pulsing.

.

"Take me to the girl… I will bring her back myself." But the moment his hand touched the pendant it dropped to the ground; colorless and dead of all powers. "Dammit…" His hand picked the pendant up and he cursed for waiting behind protected walls while Hitomi's daughter ran across Gaia to god only knew where. As he stormed out of the building once again he passed his other advisors and informed them that Fanelia was theirs to protect in his absence.

"You will do as commanded and heavens forbid if I am forced to return early to rectify any issues that arise from my absence."

.

.

.

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Back on the deck of the ship Kaen sat hunched with his back against the mast. He watched not only his Hurin, but every other person the ship. He ignored the two ransacking the room knowing fully well that they had nothing incriminating in the room or on them really. That he had missed the man was a curious thing because the scent he left behind reeked of liquor and wines…


	15. Chapter 15

Another five days had passed on the ship from hell. I sat with my legs wrapped around a railing with my head over one knee ready to heave my gullet at any moment. The first four days had gone as planned and thus sick free. The last four had been worse than hell. I'd woken with a grey face and nothing stayed down for more than five minutes. Kaen had tried to give me some herb paste that would allow me to eat again, but it tasted as foul as what I threw up.

"Hurin… Do you yet feel better?" I could have hit him for asking. I looked like death, smelled like rotting clothes and I could only imagine what I looked like.

"Yes, Kaen… a little… Can I have some water?" I drank the water because it made throwing up easier. With nothing in my stomach heaving because painful and just being able to wash away from the flavour of vomit from the tongue was a godsend.

"You will be fine alone?" I waved him away because I was afraid something other than words would come out of my mouth. A moment later a flask dropped into my view and I drank back half of the contents before realizing it was not water. It was sweet and tasted like berries.

"Kaen…" I turned around and Kaen was not standing next to me. Instead it was a strange man I'd not seen before.

"Feels better than throwing up, no?" I pushed the flask back to the man and he chuckled when he realized I would not be drinking anymore of it. "What is such a pretty looking girl doing on a ship with one from the beast tribe?" I couldn't only think 'where the hell is Kaen?'

"I-I… am sailing to Palas… I am a gift for the Merchant Prince, Dryden." The man gave her the oddest look and suddenly found it required to look her over again. It was sickening to see.

"Oh? And what name do you have? Such a tempting looking lady such as yourself?" I was thinking of telling him off and maybe kicking him in the moneybag, but I couldn't. I didn't trust myself let alone the people on this boat.

"Millerna… Who are you to ask about someone else's property?" His grin grew with my irritation it seemed, which was more than fine. I had a lot for the creepy man.

"Where did you sail from? You are not one of the beast tribe and they do not trade human women… Why such a lavish gift?" The man suddenly was hauled backwards by Kaen, the guys face changing from arrogant to startled.

"You will not speak to Hurin. She is not yours." The name 'Hurin' seemed to make the man take the man's edge away and he bowed slightly while asking forgiveness.

"My apologizes... But a week on this hunk of driftwood is enough to make anyone chat up a pretty lady such as yourself." I couldn't help but feel like everyone on the ship was suddenly watching me and judging me so as asked which coin I would offer for making my sickness go away and handed it to the man from my bag hidden in my pant-leg.

"It is a long ride and I've been sick and foul tempered. I can only imagine how one who doesn't have a sickness to consume their thoughts must feel… forgive me for being rude…" I bowed in the traditional Japanese sense and wondered belatedly if it was odd or out of place. It didn't seem so because the man left me the flask and walked away with a smile on his face.

As the man turned down towards the cabins below Kaen put his arm across my back and turned me to the sea.

"We will dock tomorrow shortly after noon. From now until then, you must stay with me at all times. That man has been around our cabin with a woman I do not know… Be cautious Hurin. We are being watched." I couldn't help but tense under him and his arm pulled me in a bit to hide the reflexive instinct my body had. The sickness was gone, but now I had other things to occupy my mind. Like being chased and strangers, spies and princes and king and knights!

"Kaen… I don't think I can do all of this… I'm starting to lose my grip on myself… I want to find that man and push him over the railing of the ship and tell him if he ever even looks at me again, I have you kill him; And Allen, if I ever meet him again, that my mother should never have been blasphemed like she had. The King of Fanelia, that if he didn't find me a way home I would make sure that he regretted it. I was sick and tired of being pushed around, moved around, forced to run, too scared to speak because there were strange machines, floating ships, on a planet that was invisible to earth and I didn't even ask for this." He buried my face into his chest to muffle my words and only the last sentence or so was audible, but only to him.

"I know Hurin. It is hard, but you have friends trying to help you. Your mother gave you the best advice I am sure to get home. Ragan is helping you and so am I. All you must do is be you. If you must weep, then weep. If you must scream, then scream and if you have to push the odd smelling man off the boat then I will find him and do it for you because he is rather big for you… But do not think that only you are here." His finger dug into the hard spot between my breasts to where my heart was. "Because a lot of people are with you and waiting for you."

"I hate you Kaen…" He smiled as I smothered my face into him. I cried once again and thanked god for having sent me Ragan and Kaen; for there being a King Van and King Chid, and even on a strange planet far from home, a place where her mother had been.

"We will wait until you are finished and I will take you below deck again. We should not leave our room until tomorrow before leaving the ship." I nodded despite the fact that I kind of wanted to look at the sea more, but I allowed Kaen to lead me away. We did not end up sleeping much that night as we stayed up while I taught him some card games I knew from earth. Not once did he mention the fact that they were clearly children's games and he played them avidly. It wasn't until I dropped my hand of cards twice that he forced me to go to sleep. My last thought was wondering when Kaen slept, seeing as he was always awake when I was whether it being going to sleep or waking up; I would have to make this up to him somehow if and when I got a hold on things.


	16. Chapter 16

"Clear out! I want all of you sea sissies off of my ship!" I sat up and bashed my head on the low bunk above me.

"Fuck!" I rubbed my head as I rolled around on the bed and almost fell off. "Stupid shi…" I looked up and the room was empty. No Kaen. No bag of food and water. "Kaen…?" My pendant was gone. "Kaen?" The door swung open and my head smashed into the bunk again.

"Out girlie. No place for you here now." The door remained open as the deck hand ushered the rest of the people that were not part of the crew of deck. I was forced to leave the ship without finding Kaen or even a sign of him.

I waited at entrance to the dock until the ship was cleared out, unloaded, reloaded and locked down to sail when the next tide too her out. Kaen did not come off the ship and I had no choice, but to move on without him.

_Where did he go? What happened to him? Was it the man the smelled funny, the woman that I didn't ever see? _

"Excuse me… I need to find the Dancing Flower?" I asked a man, but he walked right passed me without even giving me a second glance. So I repeated myself to the same effect. "What is wrong with these people? I know they hear me… That woman over there even looked at me… stupid people…" I muttered under my breath for a moment and fought the childish need to break down. "Would some mind telling me were to find the blasted Dancing Flower?" I ended up stopping half the people on the street and finally someone came over and pointed and tried to give me directions… I couldn't follow them because I didn't know the city and he actually took me despite being clearly being against it. It wasn't until he asked about my having to be there that he got interested in me.

"Sorry… I purchased goods pal. I'm a gift for the merchant Prince…" I followed behind the man while trying to make the pervert erupt into flames with just the use of my eyes. I didn't even get a spark out of him.

"For Dryden?" He turned and gave me a look over which made me want to curl up into myself and die. I could tell that every time I mentioned what I was supposed to be; which was a whore, they eyed me over and imagined those kinds of things with me and I wanted to gouge out their eyes.

"What is your name and where do you hail from_?" Does he really need to know everything?... Then again I'm a sold commodity like salt or spices and everyone knows where those kinds of things come from…_

"I'm from Freid, but I don't know where I was actually born… Never stayed long enough in one place to call it home really…" I hoped he bought the story and maybe it was because a 'whore' was talking, but it either was passable for a lie or he wasn't even listening.

"Well, here you are. Welcome to the Dancing Flower." I stood in front of the door and he opened it from me and walked in behind me. "When you finish the Dryden, make a stop at the Soaring Dragon. Ask for Toren and I will show you a better time than that merchant…" He grabbed my ass which propelled me forward and I took the closest chair that had a wall behind it.

"What can I help you with sweet heart?" A busty bar-maid type woman came to the table and almost spilled her cleavage onto the table itself. Her hips were large and rounded with almost ever male eye on her.

"I am here for Dryden. Tell him the special package he was waiting for just walked in…. The names Millerna…" I had no idea what I was doing or what I was saying, but I couldn't imagine a whore having class. Couldn't they? Again I was looked up and down at and the woman smiled and pulled at my shirt that was torn and dirty.

"The Master Merchant doesn't liked dirty gifts and if he wasn't the man he was and in here more than not, I'd not feel bad about the state your dressed in… The boys on the ship give you a hassle sweetie? We'll come with me… I'll send for a bath and find something that will fit on your little frame…" She set her tray on one hip and walked with my hand in hers. "You trash my bar and I won't be good to you, got that boys?" The entire bar hooted and hollered for the woman and she opened a side door and lead me through. "Alright… You're a dreadful mess. Whoever sent you should be told never to send a lady by ship. They never make it back unhandled… Baron! Bath!" A large man came in and didn't look me up and down. I could have hugged him… if he wasn't so big and scary looking.

"What is your name?" She gave my shirt a yank up and chuffed at the dirt up my arms and on my back. I hadn't realized I'd gotten quiet so bad.

"Name is Errie. I used to be THE Dancing Flower before I married the owner and took over when he died. I hire the prettiest girl I can find every year and make her the new Dancing Flower. It brings in people every year. Best thing I ever thought up." I waited for 'Toren' to leave before I peeled my pants off. Errie picked them up right away and actually tossed them into the fire.

"These aren't free, but seeing the money Dryden brings whenever he comes, I'll let you keep them. None of the girls are small enough to fit into these anyways. I can use the space for other clothes now… Well, get in." I had been gawking while holding my shirt in front of me like an idiot the entire time she had been talking, when she mentioned the bath I came too and got in and nearly got out again. The water was fricken hot.

"Here… uses these." She dropped a handful of glass color jars and when I opened the first I knew they were scented oils. "Pick two you like. The stronger one for your skin, the other you know what to do with." I had no idea and was starting to seriously panic.

"Hey Errie! The Merchant is here and waiting! His package ready?" A man's head peeped into the room and I lowered into the water. "Aw… Errie… Have a heart… she's new. Look at her." I actually hadn't been thinking about actually acting out the part of being a whore until he mentioned it. So when Errie turned around and looked at me I knew I looked like 'fresh meat'.

"You're right… it's not very often that they send new skin on a ship… I wonder who you pissed off to do that. They knew you were going to get take advantage of…. I hope Dryden wasn't expecting you to be pure?" I shook my head and she smiled. "Still, you are new… Tell Dryden to wait. I will gift wrap her personally…" The man grinned at me in a non 'I'm going to rape you' kind of way before closing the door again.

"Alright… You must be special, because you're young, rather cute and you were taken care of… other than the ship. You don't have a scar on you and your skin is pale so you've never worked a day in the sun. I will walk you through what is supposed to happen. If I hear good news I might even buy you after all of this. I treat all of the ladies well here. No one hurts a dancing flower." She rubbed a dollop of soap in my hair and never questioned the odd length of my hair. It only hung to my shoulders unlike everyone else I'd seen whose hair was almost always down their backsides.

Errie scrubbed me pink and dumped bucket after bucket on my head to wash the soap away. I sat there while she wrapped the towel around me and rubbed oil into my palms and down my back in a trail that ran around my waist to the front again and to my navel. She let me dab the oil on the inside of my thighs and I thanked god that I was not actually going to have to doing anything so embarrassing as have sex with a stranger.

"Alright. You are pale, have light green eyes… I'm going to put you… In… this." She pulled out a very bright green dress. It was like new leaves in the spring which made my muddy looking eyes look like jade gems. "And these…" She poked dark purple glass earrings in and matching necklace. "We use glass because the girls to not get attacked as much that way when out in public." My heart was inside my nose at this point as she dried off my back and made me slip dress on. Once it was on she called Toren back in to pull all the string in the back tight while she did something with my hair.

In the long run Errie had been forced to make do with what ended up being an up-do. She stepped back and tilted her head with a gentle smile.

"I shouldn't be this good at selling a woman… but some girls make it easy…" I think that was her way of saying 'sorry' for what was supposed to happen to me in the near future. "Come with me. Dryden has waited long enough…" The door opened and closed with the ashes of my old clothes in the fire pit. She was pointed to a table on the second floor and I walked hand in hand with Errie once more.

"Master Dryden… I pleasure… You do not come to see me as often as you promised me…" I was practically hiding behind Errie and could only see the man's shoulder and hair.

"K-Keori?" My heart had been in my nose.

.

It was not trying to evict my brain.

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A chair scraped and I panicked and spun around to run. I didn't see who knew my name. I didn't even really hear what the voice sounded like. I just heard a name that no one called me and freaked. I'd gotten three feet if I was lucky before being pulled into someone's chest.

_Kaen…_

"Errie… We need a private room. If you would be so gracious." I had tried to release the embrace when my brain started to scream. _This is not Kaen! _I listened to Errie giggle and lead us away. My grip became one of fear as I as I was shifted to walk beside Allen Schezar and Knight of Asturia. I could hear ever sound that ever existed in those moments where I walked in torment. The clang of ale mugs, the scrape of chairs on wood, the jingle of the sword at Allen's hip, and even the sound of air passing through in his hair. "Not a word until we are in the other room." His arm was gentle if not placed for an easy grab should I try to run. "You should not have run…" A door opened and Celena walked in and turned to looked at me with an anxious face. The man Dryden was nothing I had expected and as soon as the door closed and Allen released me I bolted for the only opening I had which was the open window that lead to a two story drop.


	17. Chapter 17

The window pulled away as I was ripped back. I really couldn't run in this blasted dress.

"Keori, stop this. We are trying to help!" Celena came forward and tried to ease my, but I had already taken the breath that was going to break eardrums.

My scream lasted about one second before Allen cupped his hand over my mouth. I jumped slightly and tried to kick him so he lifted me up like I was nothing.

"Release Hurin." Celena's face mirror mine as Kaen materialized out of nowhere and took hold of Allen's sister. He was nothing like I had ever seen him. He was bent to attack, defend and his voice was in a tone I didn't think he could hold. Dryden backed away and Allen dropped me to the ground, but he didn't let me go and he didn't uncover my mouth. "If I am forced to repeat myself again, I ask that you close your eyes Hurin." That seemed to cause Allen some serious fear because he let me go instantly and I ran for Kaen.

"You left me! You left me!" I hit him and he allowed Celena to run to her brother. "I had to leave the ship alone! I waited for you and you never showed!" I hit him again before turning back to Allen. "I want to get out of here before he has a chance to do anything.

"Keori… listen to me." Allen took one step and Kaen pulled me behind him and drew that dagger he sharpened every day whether it got used or no. I was very glad for it suddenly.

"If you step towards Hurin again, I will be forced to act on my orders. You have harmed Hurin, frightened her and chased her. You kidnapped her and she does not like you Allen Schezar, Knight of Asturia."

"He didn't want to come… Dryden made him." Celena spoke up and step forward without Kaen raising his blade to her. "We had sent a message for Dryden to meet us as soon as we found out who you were. He is a scholar. He knows your mother." I didn't know what to do. I needed Dryden, but I didn't trust Allen as far as I could kick him and I couldn't kick him any distance at all.

"Kaen… Is that man Dryden?" He nodded his head, but never lowered his guard. Allen and Kaen gazed at each other waiting for the other to move and give a reason to cut the other to ribbons.

"So you are Hitomi's daughter? Astonishing… to think she was here only 3 years ago… and yet here you are… born, grown and looking at least 16… Time does run oddly between the worlds, doesn't it?" He didn't come any closer, but he looked trustworthy… sort of.

"How can you help me reach Fanelia? I need to speak to Van of Fanelia." Dryden sat down at the table and I walked out from behind Kaen who lowered his blade, but his eyes. Those remained locked on Allen who walked over to the window with his sister and they spoke in whispered voices. Allen held his sister who had begun to shake. I felt bad for Kaen having scared her. She was frail…

"I am the ex-betrothed to the third princess of Asturia. I'm always coming to and from the palace. From there it is a hop a skip and a jump to speak with Chid. The boy may be young, but he is honest and he also knows your mother."

I tensed wondering what version of his mother the King knew of and Dryden saw it like I'd screamed it in his face.

"…that is. What your mother was really like. Not what History was forced to make her out to be… Of all the people on Gaia, only a few actually know what happened with Hitomi. I myself, Allen, his sister Celena, Van of Fanelia, Chid of Asturia and Princess Millerna and Van's advisor Merle. She is of the beast-tribe like your friend…" I listened and devoured everything he said. I was a sponge and he couldn't feed me enough fast enough.

"Why did you lie about my mother?" It was the biggest thing so far… kind of. Everything else I'd just come to terms with. The planet, the people, the time difference, the giant machines… the giant lie about her mother just didn't fit. I didn't know the story.

"That… I cannot say here. The room is well protected, but not for that story… and it is a long tale. So much happened and to tell the truth I couldn't give the entire thing. Only Van could. Allen has a lot of the story, but you two do not seem to get along so well." He grinned as he glanced back at Allen who gave him a dirty scowl and looked at me after with a look of almost hurt.

_I did something wrong here didn't I? No. NO! He treated me like crap, kidnapped me! All he had to do was be nice and explain! I would have listened! I was too innocent to Gaia then!_

"I want to know everything. I will go with you. I need to find Van. Please… take me to King Chid. I want to go home. I want to see my mother again… And Kaen must come with me." Kaen grinned in a way that almost made it seem like he wanted to pick a fight and it clearly pissed Allen off.

"That is arrange-able…" He stood up and suddenly a smell wafted over to me and both Kaen and I tensed.

"You asshole! I leaned over the table and Allen moved in front of his sister. "You were that dingy man from the ship! You gave me the stuff to stop me from being sick! Why didn't you say anything then you ass!" Dryden grinned and I turned to Kaen. "How did you not know! You saw his face didn't you? You smelled him didn't you?" Kaen pulled away from me and looked to the side.

"I did not know then what Dryden Fassa of Asturia looked like until I left the ship and found out…" I pushed him.

"You didn't know! I sat back down and rested my face in my hands. "Fine… fine…Allen?" He turned around almost startled. "I'm sorry. I didn't look like you were helping me, didn't feel like you were helping me and I'm sorry. I need to go home. I need to find Van." He suddenly smirked. "What are you smiling at?"

"You sound just like Hitomi when you speak of Van." He walked over without being attacked by Kaen and stretched out his hand. I waited a second and put my hand out thinking he wanted to shake hands. I was wrong. He bent down on one knee and kissed my hand. I was so close to pulling it away from him that it wasn't funny.

"I will do everything in my power to help bring you home as I once did for your mother." He suddenly stood and took Celena's hand and nodded to Dryden. "We leave from the Palace immediately. I believe Millerna will wish to know of this and I am sure Dryden will want to see her again." Dryden half smiled and Kaen stepped away from the door to allow Allen to leave first with Celena.

"You are supposed to be my gift of sorts so for all purposes… play along?" He took my hand which Kaen didn't care for in the slightest and walked out with me in hand. Errie's mouth nearly dropped and I waved goodbye meekly while Dryden hollered back.

"I'll bring her back… perhaps."


	18. Chapter 18

I ended up holding Dryden's hand the entire way to the palace which was fricken huge! The guards allowed us right in without so much as a body search and I wondered about the security of the place. Inside the main gate which stood at least 20 feet tall stood long stone paths with tall stone arch ways and water trickled here and there… The actually palace took longer to get too. It was like a mountain… you had to walk for what seemed like forever before gaining any ground it seemed.

"We are entering the south wing of the palace. We will meet with Millerna seeing as she is present with week it seems… Please wait here." Allen separated from Celena though he turned his eye to Kaen as an extra measure of some kind.

"I have to ask… while we have the chance… did you arrive like your mother did?" I knew I only had to say yes or no… but I wasn't really sure if Mother had been beamed up like I had and dropped in the middle of nowhere.

"I'm sorry… I do not know for sure… Mother told me things when I was young… but my father made her stop… he demanded her to not play with the cards either…" That seemed to interest Dryden, the mentioning of the tarot cards. "I don't have them with me… mother had them when I left…"

"Your mother knows you are here then? I suppose that is a comfort… well… she did tell you to find Van after all so… Ah… Millerna." Dryden walked passed me and greeted one of the prettiest women I'd ever seen and oh my god the dress she was wearing… Mine looked… like a whore's dress now that I looked at it. "How have you been?" The princess ignored Dryden and walked passed him as if he was not important and stop right in front of me.

"You are the daughter?... Of Hitomi?... I almost didn't believe Allen when he told me! How did you get here? Why are you here?" I was completely confused by that and could only stare.

"Good evening Princess Millerna. My name is Keori Kanzaki!" I bowed and stayed for longer than needed but I'd never met a princess before and had no idea what was considered polite or not.

"What have you done to this poor girl? She is Hitomi's daughter and she is… this will not due. She cannot go before Chid like this… Allen. Dryden. Be ashamed. You have paraded her through the city like this? She might as well be naked…" I looked down and had no idea what she was talking about. I wore fewer clothes when I went to school. "Come with me." I eyed Kaen and he got the message. 'Don't attack anyone!'. When I glanced at Allen he was pink and Dryden looked indifferent if not mildly amused.

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As I was lead ahead of the group with the princess Millerna she remained silent about anything regarding my mother. She did however ask everything else.

"How did you get from Freid to Palas so quickly if you got here only a month ago. And you said you stayed at the beast-tribe village for a few weeks as well. You must have almost flown." I stared at my feet wondering if it was alright that the princess tugged around a whore… the servants were certainly staring.

"I landing somewhere in Freid where Allen picked me up. We traveled by air for a while where I literally jumped ship and met with Ragan. Chieftain of the beast-man tribe. I stayed two weeks there before I left with Kaen. We traveled quickly as we were being followed by strange men that had tracking skills, jumped into the sea and decided to sail from Astrain to Palas rather than go right to Fanalia because chances are Van wouldn't even see me… Kaen and I thought if we could meet with King Chid that we might be sent as a messenger or something to Fanelia and get seen right away and he could send me home… but everything is going wrong. I ran from Allen, had to run from Ragan. I escaped those trackers, yelled at Kaen, got sick on the ship, got lost and ended up at the Dancing Flower as a whore-gift for Dryden…" I hadn't noticed by I started to hyperventilate and Millerna ushered me into a room and sat me down in a chair while the other filed in behind. Poor Kaen looked ready to kill anyone while Celena took orders from Millerna.

"I need some water…" Dryden left for what I assumed was the water.

"What have you been feeding this girl?" She turned to Kaen and he was startled at being directly questioned by Millerna. "I am trying to help her… she's not in the best health. I need to know what she has eaten in the last little while. She has been running on nothing but the need to survive." Kaen explained about us eating rather well before cliff jumping into the sea, but who I'd barely eaten a thing for the last 7 days… I'd been too sick.

"You should have said something before. We would have gotten you something…" Allen looked ashamed of himself and I gawked at all of them like they were mad.

"Listen to your selves! I'm sorry princess, but think about it! I've been chased whether rightful so or not…" I eyed Allen. "I don't know who is my friend and who is not and you expect me to all just up and believe in you? Trust in you? I didn't know any of your names until I landed. The only one I thought I could rely on was Van! One of you is a knight! We don't have those in my world anymore. One is a princess. A princess!" I stood up and backed away from all of them while my throat tightened up. "Kaen is half man half animal! I am so thankful to you Kaen, but where I come from you don't even exist! You want me to come to terms? You want me to just accept this all as normal?" Little black dots started to dance in my vision and my head felt lightheaded. "My pendant was stolen and I had to walk around while everyone thought I was a whore... This…. Is….na…mal…."

.

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Keori swung forward without even trying to brace for a fall. Kaen grabbed her and picked her up before she hit the ground and Millerna told him to place her on the bed to rest.

"She's dehydrated and needs rest…" Dryden came in with the water which Millerna promptly took from him and poured a small amount into a basin to wipe Keori's face with. Kaen sat on the other side of the bed and was clearly guarding her, but he allowed Millerina to work whatever magic she was working to make her healthy.

"Hurin will be fine?" Millerna stopped and looked at him.

"'Hurin'? Oh… Yes. Yes she will be fine… Allen you might wish to relax in another room with Celena while I care for Keori… The meeting with Chid can wait… or perhaps you would like to explain this in advanced?... I'm not sure what we should be doing here… It's so strange…" Millerna looked back down at Keori and ran her hands through brown hair and over a pale cheek. "She's been through so much, like her mother and she had done so much already. I don't think she realizes just how much she seems to know already… and she hasn't even met Van yet…"

"She will." The group spun to the door and in the frame stood the youthful frame of Asturias's child-like King Chid and a woman cloaked from head to foot. She yanked back her hood and Kaen stood up and moved to the end of the bed.

"You went through Hurin's things. Later the stone necklace got lost. Where did you put it?" The woman turned to Kaen and looked at Keori.

"I never took the pendant from her… I saw it, but never touched it. It was not mine. Why do you call the girl 'Hurin'?"

"Because she is important to me and to Ragan." That named woke something in the woman and she shook her head.

"This is Hitomi's daughter? She is so old… Older than I…" The King walked towards his sister and looked down at Keori.

" Yes… and she is just like her mother… In strange ways. I am Merle. Advisor to the King of Fanelia. I left Fanelia to find the girl Allen lost, but it seems I was beaten to it… It is unfortunate the dowsing crystal is gone… it could have been useful I think… As for Ragan. How is it that you came to owe a life debt to him?" Kaen tilted his head and stood straight without all the menace.

"I do not owe a life debt as you think. My debt is as his kind while he rules."

"Ragan rules? Since when?"

"Ragan claimed village protection for Hurin when Allen Schezar tried to take her when she did not wish to be taken."

"Is this true Allen?" Allen nodded and she smiled as if everything was making sense.

"She had more strength than Hitomi…" Her smile faded then. "Van has to be informed of her status now. Knowing him he is more than likely ready to kill for me leaving without permissions and without his knowledge… And if someone as strong as her has come along, I wonder what Gaia is in for… and we had just made peace after three years…" Merle walked over and placed her palm on Kaen's shoulder. A greeting between those in the beast tribe.

"When we get Fanelia informed of Keori's condition we will need to sort all of this out. Again three countries have been drawn together by a woman of the Mystic Moon… the last time almost saw Gaia's destruction… I do not want to know what might be shifting the balance of peace this time…" Chid gazed at the girl in the bed and wondered why it was always the mystic moon that answered Gaia's calls for help before anyone knew help was needed.


	19. Chapter 19

Oddly enough it was decided by group vote that aside from just Kaen who would not leave her side, that she was to be guarded at all times. It didn't really matter who stayed with her be it Allen, Dryden, Millerna or Merle. For now it was Merle and Kaen; Merle at the chair by the door and Kaen directly beside the bed on the floor.

"Kaen, tell me again how it was that this all came about… Keori's description was not quite as detailed as I might have hoped…" Merle got up and walked to the other side of Keori's bed and looked at the features that were clearly Hitomi's and the man who had become her husband on earth. It was strange to see the daughter to such a person… Hitomi had been in love with Allen and later it had almost seemed if Hitomi and Van might become one… but she had returned to her earth and Van had remained.

"Ragan had to pull Hurin from a tree. She had flown down from the sky being chased by Allen Schezar. When he would not give up and had tracked both of them down, Ragan had called on the people. Doing so as the rightful heir is equal to swearing oath to the people… he was no longer just Ragan and we were no longer just the people. We became his and he became ours… but Hurin needed to find the King of Fanelia and Ragan knew that the people, who knew she was from the mystic moon, would not let her leave. They began to see her as a compliment to Ragan… and he made her leave without telling him… I was told when she left and he knew she would, that I was to follow. She found me out quickly… she is smart. Too smart… She knows things and guesses things she should not… I do not trust all these people that say they will help her. I do not know of any that help without doing for themselves…" Merle smiled.

"And you are doing this why?" Kaen turned away from her and fingered his blade absent-mindedly.

"Just I have said… No one helps without doing something for themselves… I offered to help Ragan. One, because I did not like village life. Two, because it was commanded, but I did these things because she is Hurin… Both mine and Ragan's… You keep with man… Do you know?" Again Merle smiled. In three years she had grown from the wild and willful child to a friend and advisor. Hitomi's departure needed tending in many ways. She had left a world in war pangs and a King lost. In that time she had been had been Van's friend, his crutch and his diary. He allowed things to pass between them that no other would hear from him. That was the relation-ship that came from befriending those of the beats-tribes. Van's brother and saved a pair of girls and they had died for him. Merle stood beside Van in much the same way and now Keori stood backed with Ragan and Kaen.

"I do know… so very much do I know. Mankind is slow and cautious and there is something in them that is child-like for it and yet we, who are strong-bodied and willful…, find ourselves blinded with their courage and there creative mind... they can be just as bold as we and we can be just as child-like and slow as them. It is no wonder that those that make it into the world and mix with the other become so close and so bonded." Merle's insight into the world and the openness she had offered allow Kaen to bring her into his personal circle of trust.

"She must get to Fanelia…" Merle nodded with that a glint in her eyes.

"Tell me more. I must know everything." He walked to the window and paused with eyes closed. It was tiring be on guard all day and all night. He never actually fell into that deep sleep that allowed for full rejuvenation, but a half-sleep where his scenes remained wakeful and watchful.

"She was already being chased by men before we left… They were circling the village waiting for a chance to come in. This I know. She fled at a good time because they had been away from the village for a short while, but they knew very quickly that she had moved. How, I do not know. I made Hurin jump from the cliffs that drop into the sea past the trade city of Godashim. We travel to the closest port and sailed for 8 and a half days to Palas, Asturia where I parted from her to see who was still following her. You came off of the boat with the Merchant man, but only he followed her. You went directly towards the palace… Why?" Merle shoved back from the bed and stood by the door before pacing like a caged animal.

"I needed to speak with King Chid. I needed to make sure that nothing happened when they arrived. No mishaps getting her inside… Too many things stand unanswered. Too many things left unknown… She is a key to something that Van and I have been trying to figure out and now that she is here the gears have begun to move… But we are still standing on the outside looking in. We do not know what gears are moving, we can only hear the grinding and ticking as something beings to start… I cannot say much more without the permissions of the Fanelian Court and Van… But something has happened… It has been since Hitomi left… we are just starting to see the effects of whatever is beginning. That is has taken this long means that it is going to be big." Kaen closed the window to mask the chill that was coming from within him rather than the warm and humid day.

"Hurin…?" Kaen walked towards Keori, her lips moving as if she was speaking, but nothing came out. No noise, barely even breath. Her eyes opened before a blast rocked the south wing of the palace.


	20. Chapter 20

A blast shook the building and dust billowed into the rooms and covered everything in a thick layer if yellow plaster. Men shouted and pointed at the building that had collapsed while other ran forward to help any that may have been caught in the collapse. Not a single man had been injury being as not a single person had been in or around the building when it had fallen. But it was immediately clear that the King's Guymelef, Escaflowne was gone.

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.

.

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The King of Fanelia traveled in worn clothes under the guise of a man just trying to get to the next place. The ship he bought charted with was small, which meant few would be there and fewer yet to perhaps guess him out. He had allowed only one possession to go with him on his travels which was the Fanelian blade that was actually sown into the fabric of the half cloak under his weathered outer cloak. He did not dare bring the pendant that had resonated with the Escaflowne, it was flashy and even though it tended to be a useful item… it was also dangerous to bring. It would have to be return to its owner when he dragged both Merle and the girl back. In another day he would be inside the walled protection of Asturia's Palace were he could finally get some answers and meet the woman who claimed to be Hitomi's daughter.

"Makes no sense…" Hitomi had been gone only 3 years and yet a full grown woman was in Gaia with the pendant… Yet she was here with the pendant… who else could have such an item. And that he knew was legitimate. He'd seen it at work himself… and it had wanted the Escaflowne.

.

Which no longer worked… for him at least.

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After the machine which Emperor Dornkirk made was dismantled, Van had returned with Merle, Allen and Celena. They spent the next 3 months clearing out the debris that was Fanelia and began to rebuild. Escaflowne had been kept in the place where he had begun all of this with Hitomi and there it was forced to remain. Van had tried to move it for one reason or another and it would not activate. It would not heed his command. It had not shown life until Hitomi's pendant had crashed through the roof.

"This time tomorrow and we will be docked in the port of Palas." Van smiled as a fellow traveler stared out at the morning sun that had raised pink and orange on the horizon. Thin strips of clouds cut between the bright blue of the sky behind it and Van ignored the knot forming in this gut. It had been there since he had been told about the girl, Keori.

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In moments Kaen had lifted me form the bed and jumped right out the window. I was neither impressed or fully awake, but the moment he'd jumped I was more than willing to hurry the process along. _What was his thing with jumping out of places?_

"Kaen!" I could tell something was wrong… He had that look on his face and Merle had it too. "What's; happening?"

"I do not know Hurin… Stay with me… Do no leave my side." He put me down long enough to sling me on his back and run back into the building. He found a guard that recognized Merle at least and told them to stay here. Neither of Kaen or Merle listened and the met up with Allen and Dryden.

"Celena is with Millerna and the King behind a half of Asturia's knights guarding them." Allen eyed me as if waiting for something to become clear and turned to Merle when it obviously didn't.

"Tell me Allen. What is happening here?" Merle put back the blade I didn't even know she had been carrying and stood a good foot shorter, but for all of that her presence was huge and demanding.

"The palace is under attack. We do not know by whom and we did not know of any threats to the city before this act. The castle is completely taken by surprise." Merle bit her lip and closed a balled her fist at her thigh.

"We must leave at once. This is not place to be if it is under attack… I understand your loyalties remain here Allen, but I cannot allow Keori to remain here. Even if under that elite that is Asturia's knighthood. Allow me to take her from her to someplace else…" Allen suddenly became very curious and his expression changed immediately.

"Is the attack on the castle because of her?"

"I do not know for sure… but if it is, then there is more a reason to remove her form the palace. For both the King and for Keori." That made sense enough to him, but he didn't like it in the slightest.

"We will leave from the northern gate and head for Rampant Port. It is close enough that should I be needed I am not far. Also that is this is because of Keori that we will still be close to allies. I want to know what you know Merle. Whether Van is here or not. " Merle nodded with a gruff duty and they left.

"I will stay. As soon as I can leave again I will met with you in Rampant." Dryden left with his glasses swinging slightly as he turned.

"Keep the King safe Dryden. Millerna as well." Dryden didn't dine to answer and continued as if he hadn't heard.

"What is going on? Someone talk to me." I dropped down from Kaen's back while we walked quickly through hallways that we as wide as my bedroom had been long.

"An explosion took out part of the eastern side of the castle. Men began to invade from the guard wall that had all but shattered. They are clearly looking for something… or someone because they do not take valuables and they haven't gone towards the Kings rooms or even the Princess's. Whatever they want the believe is in the East Wing. They are armed with odd armour and weapons, there skill level is high, but they don't look like they are from Asturia. They are too few people living in old Zaibach to have spurred on some kind of revolution and Freid and Fanelia have been allies for the last three years with nothing to have caused anyone to think otherwise." I kind of expected an answer intended for someone that didn't know anything about Gaia, but I got an in-depth explanation that I only partly understood.

"You must tell me what you were dreaming about." Merle grabbed my arm and everyone stopped and looked at me.

"I-I beg your pardon?" She grew very stern and serious at that point.

"Before the explosion went off you were saying something we could not hear in your sleep and you woke just seconds before the blast shook the building. Now tell me. What did you see?"

"I don't know what you want from me… I was sleeping is all…"

.

A glazed look washed over her face and Kaen pulled Keori away from Merle, but it was not Merle he sought to defend Keori from. Merle turned as well as Allen and they eyed a strange man in stranger clothes.

"He's from Freid… one of the Praktu." Allen slide forward with his sword drawn.

"Tell them what you saw, Keori of the Mystic Moon and daughter to Hitomi Kanzaki." The Praktu closed his eyes and Keori spoke in an eerily calm voice.


	21. Chapter 21

"One sun rises over the water as it has for countless ages. Another soars over the water which only reflections can see… An army rises with silver and green banners on a backdrop of ruins and ash… Three times have they seen their homes destroyed. Three times have they been driven back into blackness between the stars and they now march from a place you cannot attack to a place you cannot defend…. A circle that needs mending… a tower that lays broken… blood…and…" Keori's eyes rolled back and a trail of blood snaked down her face.

"Release her!" Allen shouted at the man, but his eyes had rolled as hers had and he succumbed to whatever was happening.

"Hurin!" Merle ran to the Praktu and shook him. He spat blood from his mouth while trying to convey what he'd learned.

"They are coming for her… she can set them free…" His hand passed over his own face and he instantly died in Merle's arm. Keori began to cough as if she had been under water for too long.

"No Country has the colors of silver on a green background… we do not know who this enemy is." Allen shoved forward and held Keori by her shoulders.

"Keori… Tell me something visual. A landmark, a scene, something anything." His finger wiped the blood from her nose and mouth while she searched her mind for anything useful.

"Blood….. and black feathers…" Kaen pulled her up and became to run forcing Merle and Allen to chase after them.

"Kaen! Stop!" Merle could not get to him and he jumped over a fence that Allen was forced to go around. Only Merle could still follow.

"Kaen… what are you doing? Put me down." Despite that I held on to him frightened like I didn't know I could be. Everything else until now was nothing compared to him now as he ran, breathing hard and holding my like I might fall and break.

A thunderous sound cut me off from telling him more forcefully to put me down. A cloud of smoke flowed out from a crater that had become of the garden just before us. Wind blew the smoke away, but nothing was there. Nothing, but a hole in the ground, but Kaen put me down slowly and dragged me behind him as if the very air was his enemy.

.

A moment passed with the smell of fire and dirt, smoke and oil…. On the air. For a second a blinked and that had been all it took. Kaen was suddenly not before me be being shoved to the side by absolutely nothing and then sent flying.

"Kaen!" I took a step and then I noticed the ground shook.

"Keori!" Merle paused a good 15 feet behind me and she did not move any closer. I didn't want to think it, but I knew there was actually something in front of me and I just couldn't see it.

"I can't…" I managed to run maybe five feet and the thunder roared while shaking the earth and lifting me up off the ground. I just wanted to help Kaen. He wasn't moving. He was twisted on the ground in a position that wasn't normal, that wasn't right.

"Keori!" Merle moved, but she knew as I did. You can't fight what you can't see. I hovered in the grasps of something I could feel, but not see. It was like a car covered by a protective cover and I looked down to see I was an easy 20 feet off the ground and then I was moving.

"Merle!" She stood and watched and then got smaller and smaller and all I could hear was what a factory might sound like.

"Let me go!" I pulled an arm out from my side and punched something that was metal. I had only seen one this on Gaia that was made of steel and that was Allen's Guymelef. A shockwave moved through the metal and into my bones and the Invisible Guymelef stopped.

"Release Keori." Allen was piloting Scherezade and had a huge sword drawn.

"Allen…" _I take back everything bad I thought about you. Just save me._

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.

.

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Van pointed at the land off in the distance and the smoke the was now billowing up and outwards over the city.

"What the hell is going on in Pala?" A sudden wind nearly took Van right over board. He pulled himself upright and swallowed the saliva in his mouth.

.

Flying over the water, unpiloted and heading towards Asturia was Escaflowne. He would have known even if it hadn't nearly blown him over into the sea. There wasn't a single thing that made sense to him now. Merle had left without him, Hitomi's daughter had come to Gaia and Escaflowne was acting of its own will as it disappeared into the distance in dragon form.

"What was that thing?" A crew man held his chest as if fending off a heart attack.

"That was a lot of trouble if this ship doesn't turn around and head into port somewhere else…" Van pushed his sword out from the fabric that shielded it from sight and yanked the rest of it away. The crewman back away as Van pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it into a puddle that Escaflowne has slashed up when it had flown over them.

"What are you doing man? Are you mad?" Van gave the man a smirk and jumped ship. White wings sprang from his shoulder blades and he heard the entire ship gasp and shout as he pulled away from them. It had been a while since he had used his wings for anything other than getting to the roof the hung over his Guymelef in Fanelia. They would be sore later if he ever got the chance to wind down long enough to notice…


	22. Chapter 22

"Allen… get me out of here…." I squirmed to try and free myself just enough to pull myself out of the invisible Guymelef's hands. Judging from what Scherezade looked like, I could scale down the front… so long as it remained still. The chances of that were slim to none.

It was clear that whoever was piloting the enemy machine wanted me alive and unharmed though, because after a moment's thought it put me down.

"Keori, Merle. Leave this place at once. Do not stop until you get somewhere safe and do not worry. I will find you when this has been cleaned up." His voice was clear and solid as it came out behind the metal frame of Scherezade.

"She will not make it far…" I ran to Merle and stopped to look back as Allen slide into something hard. Sparks flew and Merle tugged on me to get me to move.

"I won't forgive you if you let this guy take you out Allen!" I ran with Merle and never heard Allen answer if he had even heard me at all. I stumbled when more shockwaves took the earth and nearly dropped to the ground when Scherezade's blade came down on the enemy.

"He will be fine… Allen is one of Gaia's best fighters and has piloted a Guymelef for many years…" But I had stopped listening… I couldn't think of anything right now other than running.

Both Merle and I had stopped to catch a breath in a store room that was loaded from floor to ceiling with bottle jars. For some god forsaken reason I had to open them. I don't know if it was because I was wired on adrenaline or what, but I kept at it. Jar after Jar… some had food like nuts, pickled vegetables and dried fruit while some contained a dark liquid.

"What is this Merle?" She looked over her shoulder and then back out the window. She answered while keep vigilant eye on the happenings outside.

"It is sugary liquid used to sweeten liquors used for certain desserts… it is not…" I grabbed a jar and dumped half of it out so I could carry it easily. "Keori! What are you doing..." Merle swung out the door after me while I hefted the pottery around. I knew what I wanted to do with it the moment I saw it. "Come back! That is not the way!"

I ignored Merle outright and ran back towards the area Allen had been, but he was now farther. I could only imagine that he was trying to lead the enemy away, but it didn't matter. Everywhere I looked there were broken pillars, people screaming, people crying and death… There was so much death and I was just seeing it now. I heard the scraping sounds of steel on steel and followed it.

"What are you doing?" Merle was running beside me and I could tell she was seconds from attempting to drag me away.

"I'm saving him… he's fighting something he cannot even see." My breath was hard and laboured, I was not the runner my mother had been and god did it burn. I saw the top half of Scherezade who was on a level below us. He was in some kind of garden view that peered over the rest of Palas and if I had not been sore, numb and wired with fear I might have thought it pretty. "Allen!" I took the stairs two at a time.

"Get back!" Allen's voice rang in harmony with the voice from the other Guymelef and debris hit my face and chest as a stone statue was obliterated. It stopped just as quickly as it had started and that was then I smelt it. The stink of oil and gears, but it was not Allen. Scherezade stood almost 30 feet away and I could feel the hot breath of steam that could not have been from him.

I picked up the jar and splashed the thick red stain which rippled down and made visible the foot of my enemy.

"Stupid witch…" The voice hissed by he didn't move from between Allen and I which was fine with me. I wasn't going for Allen anyways.

"You came back to do this…" Merle grinned as she knew Allen was because the fight was almost even with being able to at least see where your enemy stood. "Hurry… let Allen finish this." We both ran to the left and over a large crack that had formed under the weight and duress of two Guymelefs fighting. As soon as both Merle and I were out of range from injury they resumed. "That was dangerous… Smart, but dangerous. Allen would have walked away from this battle without your aid. But he now stands a chance of not taking injury because of it… You have courage like your mother…" For some reason it made me proud and my mother wasn't even here to hear it.

"We can't stay here… So long as I'm here then they will keep fighting… Allen and the others… We have to move…" No sooner had it come out of my mouth did I stumble to the ground. My hands burned with the little rocks that had pushed up under my palm as I slid.

"Run!" Allen shouted from the distance and from the ground I could see why… running towards us, shaking the earth as it came were two more enemies. I couldn't see them, but they had passed through the liquid I had ended up wasting mostly on the ground, so with each step a smear of red suddenly appeared after each quake and then another tremor coursed through the ground all around me. It was so hard that my teeth had slammed together and jarred my brain around inside my head. I coughed as dust entered my lungs and my eyes watered. I blinked quickly to try and relieve them, but the world had suddenly become very quiet other than a ringing in my ear.

"Van!" I saw Merle, but I couldn't hear her. I rubbed my face and tried to clear my vision while I strained to hear what she was saying. "Master Van!" Merle had said something with such fevor that I almost didn't notice that strange darkness that was all around me then… It blanketed me and I could feel the temperature difference from being in that shade. The moment my eyes cleared I looked at the underbody of what could only be described as a dragon.

.

It stood over top of me and giant crimson wings curled around its sides blocking me in. A clawed hand was bent under the long metal neck as if it was trying to cage me it or hoard me like golden treasure.

"Merle…" My voice was tiny and I almost couldn't hear myself. The rose colored gem in it hands pulsed and I could _feel_ it in my body the moment I had said a single word. A small sound, like a coin or pebble being dropped caught my ear before an explosion rocked me. The force blew me sideways and I couldn't tell what was going on anymore. The dragon swiped to catch me and missed and something blew the entire edge off of the Palas-view platform away. I couldn't hear anything, but a constant ringing from the explosion that might as well have been set of inside me head. I was disoriented and confused, but that all vanished the moment I felt nothing.

.

I didn't feel heat.

I didn't feel pain.

I didn't even feel alone for all the good it did me.

.

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What bothered me and snapped me out of my moments reprieve was is that I wasn't feeling gravity and watched the lower city of Palas rise up to smack me in the face as I spun awkwardly in an uncontrolled fall. I wondered why I wasn't screaming, why I couldn't cry. _Perhaps I am too afraid to cry. _I listened to the rapid flapping of this obnoxious dress I was still in and as I rolled and faced up, I saw the Dragon leap of the edge from above and drop down after me.

"Faster…" My hand reached out as if that little distance was going to make a difference.

"Escaflowne!" A metal claw encased me whole and in the darkness of its hand I felt its wings beat and lift. I was no longer falling and I began to feel the beating of its heart. Or was it mine? Inside I turned and looked out from a crack into the world outside.

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Palas was burning.

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"Escaflowne!" I heard someone yelling and a saw land below as the Guymelef lowered with a slight jolt. It became quiet and I wondered if I was actually stuck inside this thing or if maybe this was actually one of the enemies.

"Let me out!" I pushed a finger through the crack of light and I was answered by a strange voice while I began to shake against my will.

"Just hold on." A man walked by and then the claw opened and I tumbled out. "Are you hurt?"

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.

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Shock took over where nothing but survival instinct had born witness to her actions before. Keori knelt on the ground with her fingers clawing into the ground and a steady trail of tears ran down her smoke stained, ash covered face.

Van looked the girl over and picked up a handful of things that were not right. This woman had just fallen from the Palace terrace above, but she was dressed like a whore. Escaflowne had moved without being piloted to save her while he had been making the ascent up… and she looked too much like Hitomi to pass for anyone other than the girl, Keori.

"What is your name?" That seemed to stir something because she became ridged before looking at Van with a mixture of utter fear and isolation.

"Errie…" Van knew that was a lie. The owner of the Dancing Flower was a robust woman with fire for hair and soul.

"Tell me your real name… Is your name Keori?" He watched recognition pass over her face and then fade. This was Hitomi's daughter and she had been on Gaia for a month and learned enough that she should trust almost no-one. He looked her over and picked out the features that were Hitomi and those that were not. Keori was brown haired, green eyed and slightly bigger than her mother in frame. Her hair was only shoulder length and was in a loose mess on top her head.

"Who are you and why are you talking to me?" She thought of striking out at him and running, but she knew her legs wouldn't carry her.

"Have you seen a cat-girl name Merle or the Asturian knight Allen." She broke down then with her face hidden in her hands.

"He was fighting the invisible Guymelef up there before I was pushed off! Two others showed up and the last I saw of Merle was in the Palace! Kaen…. I have to find Kaen!" She finally forced herself to move and Van went to grab her.

.

He was stopped when Escaflowne moved and blocked his path.

.

"Escaflowne…" She paused and looked at Van, her body still shaking. Her face stared at him like she was seeing him for the first time.

"I saw you… I saw you in the sky while I was falling…" She shifted away from him as if he might catch aflame and ignite her. Her feet slid back one after the other. She was about to bolt and run.

"Van! Keori!" Keori gripped her heart and something hit the ground and shone in her eyes forcing her to cover them. Allen had been running and met up with her just as blood dripped from her nose like it had when the Praktu had taken hold of her.

"Keori…This is Van of Fanelia… Your nose…" Keori backed away, but Allen held her. "I saw an army with a banner of silver of a green backdrop… I saw blood and black feathers… I saw winged men and women like him…" Allen and Van passed each other and confused and concerned look. Neither willing to speak openly or out loud about what would soon become common knowledge between them all.

"Van… when did you get here? When did they Escaflowne begin to work again?" Van regarded Keori as he spoke until he followed her gaze to the pink pendant that was on the ground beneath Escaflowne's energist.

"I'm not sure… I was on the coast of Asturia in a ship when it flew passed me for the palace." Allen glanced at the Guymelef as Van came towards Keori. She pulled against Allen's arm, but he held her still.

"This is yours." Van held out the pendant which activated the moment it touched Keori's hand. The chain was clenched in her palm while the pendant shot skywards and pointed to something invisible in the sky and was moving as a fast speed.

"The enemy seems to be retreating…" Allen watched until the pendant dropped limp and swung in Keori's hand.

"Who did this Allen? Is Chid alright? Where is Merle?"

"Let us head back up and we will all discuss this… With all of us together I am sure things will become easier to understand and explain." Allen locked arms with Keori who could decide which she should pay more attention to. The dragon or the King of Fanelia.


	23. Chapter 23

I got then entire story from the King of Fanelia and the Duke or Freid. As it stood the Duke was also the ruler of Asturia due to his lineage on his mother's side. Being that he was the only male in the line of succession and neither direct-lined females would marry, he had been thrown both kingdoms in the past year. It didn't take that much to lose me in the history lesson. Unfortunately it had come about that the man that had unlocked my dreams and died trying had a companion… he now stood before me and I had been invited to allow him into my mind once more.

"The other man died… I can't allow this." The cloaked man sat in a chair before me, our knees almost touching we were so close. Kaen stood behind me, leg bandaged from the break before and glaring most viciously.

"I do not believe that this man should be allowed inside Hurin's mind. It is a place meant to be kept sacred." His hand rested on my shoulder, a pillar of iron strength that I wished I had a sliver of.

"We will not force the matter… but you have mentioned that the dream the last Praktu pulled from you was involving a dead race… or near dead. Van of Fanelia may in fact be the last blooded relation to the direct line of the Draconians." Millerna sat on the far side of the table, Dryden at her side while I ignored the penetrating gaze of Van. I could only stare the 'praktu' in the eye while he examined me visual. The only reason I even considered allowing this fruitcake into my mind of all places is because the Child-King, Chid had brought these men from Freid.

.

But I had killed the first one with him just being inside my brain…

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"You can try, but only if you can swear that you won't die…" The Praktu looked at me as if my concern had been something he'd not expected, but really what could I do? I was still not don't coping with my firs death at my hands… it was not going well. The only saving grace this time had been that Kaen had been found and was alive… I don't' think I'd ever cried so much honestly.

"I will delve only as deep as you allow me… should I encounter resistance, I will retreat…" He waited and I nodded for him to go ahead with whatever he was going to do. I didn't expect to feel different when he started, but god did I.

.

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_` "I wish to go into the place where you have stored your dreams… In this state you cannot act of your own accord so you must tell me when you wish me to stop… understood Keori?" I answered with a 'yes' even though I couldn't see anyone speaking. Inside the confines of my head I actually managed to feel naked. "I will not delve into personal affairs if it can be helped, but some actions or situations will evoke an emotional response that I can do little but say I will not speak of them outside this place." That gave me a slight edge to work off of… until he opened up the memories involving my mother and father._

_._

_My mother and father at my school during my 7__th__ grade._

_Father taking me to the library._

_Mother scolding me about the cards._

_Father's death._

_Mother's denial._

_My last day at school before coming to Gaia._

_._

_The dead people at the village._

_Allen and his Guymelef._

_The Airship and Celena_

_Falling to what looked like my death._

_._

_The images shifted to Ragan and the beast tribe people._

_The kiss._

_Running far away._

_Kaen._

_The ship to Palas and the Dancing Flower_

_._

_._

_The attack… the invisible enemy, running, Kean, the giant dragon, Escaflowne…_

_Van of Fanelia…_

_._

_._

_The world Shattered. _

_._

_._

_._

_ An enemy emerged from a rip in the sky and poured in from a place that was nowhere and everywhere. The bore silver and green banners that flapped angrily in a breeze from another world while myriads of men and women with black wings dropped down into a mountain pass clouded with cloud while I watched it happen in a field of floating rocks above… _

_ ….The pendant is breaking… it is cracked._

_ …A flash of light shone against the darkness and I stood with my hands around the pendant. I was in danger, the pendant was a torch in the shadows and I needed to be hidden. Needed to be silent…_

_ …Hands clapped around me and spun me so I faced them. They took then pendant and its light faded away… it was more damaged now._

_ …Still nothing but darkness… Have I always been here? I face in the darkness… the face from before and the same hands… I can't see them and suddenly I taste saltwater and it burns while if fills my lungs… I'm drowning. I'm dying._

_ …Keori… Keori… I'm being kissed again… Someone different than before… _

_ … I pendant shatters…_

_ …darkness…_

_ …darkness…_

_ …blood… blood and the bodies of almost everyone I had just been in the room with dead at my feet… a green and silver banner in my blood soaked hands… my clothes are torn… I smell something burning…_

.

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"Keori! Keori!" I could hear someone saying my name and it sounded wrong. I felt something moving me around, shifting me, pushing and pulling. "Get him away! Get something for the blood!" My hands felt numb and my legs suddenly weighed too much to move. I could feel my lungs filling with air, but it tickled… did they say blood?

"What were you thinking?" Chid… the boy with so much responsibility… he will never be a child. Not truly.

"She is aligned with the evil that is coming! I saw you all dead at her hands!" Something tipped over and I tried to move to see what it was.

"I need a shredded blanket or table clothes; something to press hard against the opening. Allen, get the man out of here… Van… Van!" Something moved me and I felt something warm on my back. "Make sure you are comfortable… you won't be able to move till I finish… Dryden. Give my medical bag… If I don't' start now… she'll die…"

"Keori…" They can't be talking about me… so who is bleeding… Why can't I see? "Will she be alright?" …Chid sounded too worried… I wonder what is wrong…

"If she dies… I will kill that Praktu myself…" I wonder what he did. Someone sounds angry…

"He is a civilian from Freid and in Asturia… he is under Asturian Law and subject only to King Chid…" I shifted and pain shot through my and ripped a scream from me against my will.

"She's feeling pain… that's a good thing… If she were getting worse she wouldn't' be feeling anything…"

"Keori… stay with us. Don't leave like this… Can we give her something for pain? She is crying and I can only imagine what she is feeling…"

Muffled voices echoed in my head and then they cleared again.

"I can't... I just can't. If I do they could kill her. We are trying to save her right? Then get away and don't presume to know what she needs…" More angry voices… they kind of sound like mother and father when I saw little. They never argued often or anything, but once in a while Father would wish Mother to do something and I could only wish they would stop… I was no longer a child though.

"All of you…. Shut up…" Allen called out and I heard two sets of footsteps running down a hall or something and entering the room.

"Hurin."

"Keori."

"I hurt… what is wrong with…" I coughed and my eyes opened while I bit down on my lip accidently. I had never felt pain like this in my life.

"Don't move. I will explain… everyone. Leave…" Everyone but Millerna and Van left the room. I wondered why he stayed of all people. I knew him the least after all.

"Can you move your hand and arm Keori?" I was confused by the question and instinctively tried to move them. They were heavy and sore.

"No… What is wrong with me… What have you done?" Panic set in.

"While in trance with the Praktu from Freid… something set him off and he attacked you. He feared for the life of his king and the King of Fanelia… do you remember what you saw in the dream?" Millerna held my hand and brushed her finger a cross my cheek.

Was I crying?

"N-no… Yes. You all died… The people came from the mountains and killed everyone. The all had black wings. Like Van's… The pendant was stolen I think, but I got it back… and it shattered… and I drowned…"

"Relax… it was just a dream… calm down Keori…" She tightened her hands around mine and I fought to keep my breathing low because it hurt otherwise.

"You weren't there… I could taste the water in my mouth! I looked down at you all and you were all silent, unmoving… covered in blood… I didn't do it! I didn't do it!"

"We know… we just need to figure this out. Keori. I promise you, I will bring you home as soon as I can. I will make sure I bring you home." Suddenly the room became silent and I wondered if something had happened to my ears and I heard Van's name whispered.

"What is wrong? What is happening?" Van answered me.

"We need you to get strong. With the Escaflowne working again, I can defend you. We will not allow whoever is coming for you to take you… Millerna. Take care of her. I need to talk with Allen and track down Alseides. We have to see if it is working as well and if it can be piloted." The door opened and closed again.

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What was left unsaid was that when Van had mentioned sending Keori home and having meant it with completely honesty and truth, a small crack had formed in the pink pendant on the bedside table.


	24. Chapter 24

"How are you feeling today? Is the pain any better?" Merle sat beside me and cradled my pendant like she was protecting from further damage. Truth be told I wasn't shocked the thing was breaking. I'd been dropped, exploded and everything else. Gods knows I've got to have bashed it around like you wouldn't believe…

"I miss my home, Merle… I want to see my mother. She has to be so worried and I was mean to her before I left… I wish my father and nana were alive. Father would have come her himself to get me and Aunt Vari would have known the way…" Merle shoved out of her seat and twisted to look at me. It was hard to look at her as high up as she was on the bed but I could see enough to know she was shocked about something.

"Lady Vari… I have to go get Van!" Merle was gone and the door slammed as she went. I was forced to stay in the bed having been told a lot of time would be needed to heal and only a week had gone by since I had been stabbed. I'm still not exactly sure why that man, the Praktu tried to off me, what from what I heard later, Van was ready to kill him whether I lived or not. Allen protected King Chid's rights which nearly broke out in the two fighting and Millerna had thrown them out until they could think about what was really important.

While I waited for Merle to return I did the only thing I could. Stare. I watched the curtains billow and some birds fly by outside. But the bored me and I daydreamed of days not spent in a bed or running for my life. That was short lived… story of my life.

"We're back. Tell Van about Lady Vari at once." I looked at them both like they were out of their minds, but Van was short of breath and Merle looked ready to burst. It was the first time I'd seen her so animated that I started talking about my Nana from Earth.

"Well, Aunt Vari was a friend of my grandmother's… I only met her a few times… she was fantastic... She was the one that taught my grandmother how to read tarot… She stayed with us for a short while because she lived overseas I think. The pendant had come from her and grandmother gave it to mother…"

"What did she look like?" Van moved closer while I stammered about trying to describe a woman I haven't seen since I was a child.

"She was tall and lean… to be honest, she was gorgeous… Dark straight hair even though she was getting older and she had the oddest birthmark… she circles just above the brow… I tried to tell her she was dirty and I had to clean her face… She had laughed so much… She said… she said her son would have gotten along well with me…...Van…?" Van was motionless. If I thought I'd felt naked with the Praktu in my mind I sure did now.

"Impossible… That's not possible." Normally I'd ask, but two things occurred to me then. 1: I had a feeling I was going to have this explained to me and 2: I'm not sure I wanted to know anyways.

"Lord Van… Is it her?" Van shook his head while staring at me. I kind of wanted to curl into a ball and hide somewhere.

"Vari is the name of a Draconian woman who married a man named Goau. He was the last King of Fanelian before me and my father. The woman you just described went in search of my brother Folken, after failing to return from retrieving the heart of a dragon on the Mystic Moon… She never returned and has never been seen since." The room was suddenly too hot and my jaw hurt from grinding my teeth. "You said she gave the pendant to your grandmother. The same woman that came to Gaia and then gave to Hitomi who also came here… Did you not think this important?" He raised his voice and was actually frightened. I didn't think he'd hurt me or anything really, but in that moment. I was afraid of him. What came out of my mouth next seemed to take the heat out of the room and doused it in ice.

"Your part draconian." He looked almost hurt then. Like I'd called him a bastard child or kicked a puppy or even a box of puppies.

"Yes, but I'm not like the ones you saw in your dream." I didn't want to know anymore. I found that either my breaking point was lowering or I hadn't recovered from the other shocks in my life just yet. "The black wings on a draconian means that they are dying… and you said they all had black wings."

"I want to see. I want to see your wings." He was taken aback by that and Merle looked ready to lunge at me and I was bed-ridden with a stab wound.

"You don't believe me, do you?" He was slow… sometimes painfully slow at realizing that I was only human. Wings on a person… it's a must see.

"Use your head for one second. Do you think when my mother saw your wings and was shocked that it was because some winged people supposedly were demons or something and hurt us? No. It's because people on Earth don't have wings. I want to see them is all. You don't have to get your feathers in a knot."

"Hold you tongue. You are talking to the King of Fanelia." I was going to thrash Merle when I got the chance.

"He's not my blasted King so back off! Better yet, leave… I'm sick if you didn't notice, stabbing and all. I'm just going to try and heal if you don't mind badgering me some other time about things I didn't know where of relevance to your precious King of Fanelia." Van straightened up and managed to look guilty. Merle was smoldering. I didn't care.

"I'm sorry Keori." Van shoved his hand outwards to silence Merle's rebuke. "I have not been myself and forgot… I have shown you the very worst of Fanelia which I will make amends for… for now, please mend quickly…" Van left and was followed my Merle. Their near head on collision with Millerna went duly noted and she was kind enough to not ask.

"You are feeling better? Ever one is worried about another attack while you are injured… I have not seen Chid so beside himself with agitation that it worries me… You are having a hard time with Merle aren't you?" She smiled while she lifted my shirt and managed by bandages. "Your mother waited a long time to get used to Merle. They became great friends. Merle was shocked when Hitomi said she had to return home… Merle though she was going to stay with Van. We were all rather shocked honestly… Merle is a good woman… you need only get used to her… She's your age after all…" I sat up and regretted it.

"I thought she was older! She's younger than Van? Oh…" I laughed through the pain of laughing. "She was acting all high and mighty… what a faker…" Gritting my teeth, Millerna scolded me for pulling three stitches and Chid and Allen came to see me. I could tell it was Chid who actually wanted to talk to me, but Allen tagged along with the King as if I might jump from the bed and thrash he boy for nearly killing me.

"You are feeling well I see…" Chid's right hand was balled into a fist. He looked ready to cry almost. He fought it well enough. It was all that stopped me from being sarcastic and telling him all humans take near death experience like a champion.

"Yes. It doesn't hurt… that's why I keep pulling stitches." The boy saw my lie and remained silent a moment.

"I wanted to inform you of the things you have missed since becoming… ill. We are under the impression that an army of Draconians are coming to Gaia… Van has collaborated with Draconians having black wings and at this time we are trying to understand its significance… Van has made a personal request of Freid… the Guymelef Alseides which was formerly piloted by… Lady Celina…" My jaw dropped. Celina… as in Allen's sister… the sweet and gentle… I watched Allen's agitation and knew it was her.

"Celina piloted a Guymelef? Allen's sister… You can't be serious." Chid understood my denial and explained further.

"The Lady Celina was under mental duress at the time and went under the alias 'Dilandau'. It was fortunate that we could recover her intact." They thought she was intact? They were out of their minds.

"Speaking of which… I would like to see Celina… Being that I can't do nothing but argue with Merle and that Millerna is busy… I would like someone to talk to…" Before Allen denied me I have him a reason he would not refuse. "I wanted to apologize for abandoning her on the airship and for the incident at the Dancing Flower." Allen swallowed hard and almost glared at me. In front of his King he could do little to displease… Had I not been in pain I might have made it worth my while for having chased me around in his Guymelef…

"I will ask the Lady so long as she agrees…" Chid was ever so sweet in offering that condition and I chuckled; again to my regret.

I felt like a donkey's rear at this point. I knew what I was doing, but Celina never seemed to have a clue… When she came to my room and sat beside me, her face wrinkled at the corner of her eyes with worry, I almost abandoned my plan. Almost.

"Celina… It's not as bad as it looks. I swear… Did Allen tell you why I asked you to come here?" She shook her head and I smiled. Allen was far too nice of a guy. "Well, it's for a small list of things. Don't worry. I'm not asking you to do anything for me or such… First: I'm sorry for using you to escape the airship and then for what Kaen did. Second: When the time comes, I need you to agree to pilot the Guymelef Alseides…" Celina furrowed her brows.

"I cannot use a Guymelef… I'm sorry Keori…" I leaned forward and bit my cheek to stifle the scream at want to burst out of me.

"I need you… to remember then. I was just told that you piloted that machine… Allen and your King told me so... Van wants you to operate it again… You don't remember because you were sick then… I need you to stop living in your brother's shadow. Stop living under his guiding hand, because Celina… You're not alive. You're not living at all. You've been a passenger in your own life so far and you need to take control…" Celina looked taken aback, more than for what I just said to her.

"King Van came to me yesterday… and he said he did so without Allen's permission… At first I thought it was odd that he would not ask Allen first, but then he explained that, that, was not right… That no one should speak for me… ever… That since I was found on the battlefield in Zaibach of all places, that I have been like a sleeping person… unaware that this is not dream and that my life was wasting away… You sound so much like he did then…" Celina glanced at the door as if frightened then and clenched her hands together tightly. "Who is the man Dilandau?" Her eyes locked onto mine so tightly and so fiercely that not telling her never once entered my mind. Instead I began dreading other things.

.

I was going to get in trouble for this. I knew it without a doubt.

.


	25. Chapter 25

All that I knew came flowing out of me and I waited for Allen to burst in and freak out. I explained to her again the existence of the 'man' Dilandau and that she had been brain washed in more than one way. I left out the information about the other members of her squad while under Zaibach rule whom had all been killed trying to defend her. Somehow, from the look on her face I could tell she knew. It was like she wasn't hearing this all for the first time and I wondered if maybe Allen or someone had tried to explain it to her once before. Celina's eyes focused in and out on something not entirely in the room and her arms wrapped around her like she was cold.

"Was I wrong in telling you all of this? Was I wrong to what I have?" Guilt hit my like a sack of books to the face. I wasn't the only one in serious trouble. Celina had rights, Allen had a King to defend and both Van and Chid ruled over an entire country that needed them. I was only a small piece of the puzzle and I acted as if I was the only one that needed help.

"I don't know… I'm not sure…" Celina focused on me and I leaned forward and felt the hot trickle of blood down my chest. It was slightly sticky once it soaked into the bandage and cooled quickly.

"And you never heard this before? You never knew any of this?" A hard knot lodged in my throat. Celina was the only person next to Millerna that was kind and I was hurting her.

"I remember a red machine… and a group of boys… they loved me and I loved them so much that I hurt them…" Celina repeatedly tucked back a lock of hair behind her ear while she spoke. "They were always worried and it made me so mad sometimes… So angry… I…"

"You don't have to continue…" But she kept going and going. It was like once she started she had to finish… or maybe that she simply couldn't stop.

"Folken and… and… the Emperor. Emperor Dornkirk had been the man behind everything, but I didn't care. I didn't care about anything… there had been another person too, but I can't remember his name… he was the nicest of them all. He'd cared for me and his care made me feel weak… I hated him the most. I hated him."

"Celina." She seemed to be spiralling out of control now and I didn't know how to bring her back.

"I remember the Escaflowne… and…. Hitomi. I only met her a few times. The girl that could read the future… I wanted to kill her. She was always in my way. She protected him… protected Van of Fanelia."

"Celina. Enough." Allen walked in at the worst time. He had clearly been kept by Chid or perhaps Van because now he was short of breathe and equally so in temper. His face turned to me and conveyed in glare alone what words he would not utter speak.

"Alseides…" Celina suddenly surged up from her chair and stood rather unlike herself. Her shoulders were drawn back and she stood with a commanding aura and not like a demure woman. Her eyes focused in and scanned the room and looked down at me. Recognition passed her face, but I don't think it was me she was seeing at all.

"Dilandau." My voice managed to not break.

"Celina…" When she wouldn't heed her brothers own voice he rounded on me. "Stop this Keori."

"Celina." In the same tone I demanded Allen's sister's attention. She responded and her shoulders dropped, face became clouded with confusion and deeper emotions.

"I knew this would happen. Did Van put you up to this? Did you even think for one moment that maybe this was for her own safety? That she was better off not knowing? Maybe if you had listened to Hitomi would you wouldn't be here with a group of people you can't even get along with. Stay out of this affair Keori." I shut my mouth and stifled outrage, guilt while I cradled a shattered ego.

"Enough…" Celina sat down and held her hands tightly in each other. "You have no right… to keep things that involve me from me. " Allen glared at me further despite his sister's plea. "Allen!" Celina's raised voice caused both Allen and I to jump. "Stop ignoring me! S-stop looking to close me in and away from the world. Stop trying to force me into this… this!" She stood up again and removed the small jacket of sorts that covered her shoulders and backside. The white lace slide noiseless to the ground where she stormed out and left it.

"Allen."

"Not right now." And he left me alone to my own thoughts and worries. What had I actually done? Was it right for me to ruin these people's lives just so I could get home? And was that what I was really doing? My brain hurt too much.

"Kaen." The moment his name was said the man himself jumped in from the outside window.

"Hurin does a lot, says a lot and speaks very much like a man. You are too smart for your own good." He had a habit of explaining what exactly it was that I was doing wrong and in a way that made it sound rather impressive coming from a woman. I hated it. This entire planet was filled with sexists.

"What is the word for 'perfection' and 'man'?" Kaen looked at me oddly and rested a hand on his hip while he thought about it.

"You ask strange things Hurin… the word I think you look for does not exist." I laughed so hard that it hurt and Kaen grew concerned. It was good to laugh about such a small thing and for some reason it felt so great. That even in this word a 'perfect man' did not exist.

"Alright then… how about… Great man or man of greatness."

"Keiki. It is a word for a man of many great deeds. Why do you ask Hurin?" I pulled myself from the bed and was glad when Kaen helped me rather than push me back into it.

"I needed a good name for you… I'm leaving for a little bit Keiki. You're coming with me, but I need to rely on you because it really hurts to walk and stand. You're going to be my man of many great deeds…" Kaen lifted me carefully onto his back which wasn't carefully enough. He had to put me back down and watch the door while I removed my shirt, clean myself as best I could and then rewrap the bandage as tightly as I could. I also packed a small bag with a white powder I knew was a pain killer and the green leaves that Millerna packed into my wound twice daily and removed. The worst part of that was that Kaen would have to remove the leaves and replace them because I had to bite down and ring the life out of something while it was being done because it was far too painful. I also left a note of my having left for a short while which ended up taking me another hour as I wrote individual letters to Millerna, Van, Celina and Allen.

"You are so demanding and harsh yet you have the soft heart of a woman. A trait our people would benefit from." I withheld the comment that 'our' people, was actually just 'his' people.

"You haven't asked me where I plan to go. Why not?" I crawled up on Kaen's back and he dropped down carefully into the garden outside my window.

"You did not tell me yet I go with you. I will find out on my own." Gaians were weird all the way around.

"I need you to take me to Zaibach." Kaen didn't seem to like that in the slightest.

"Hurin… This place you ask to go. It is a dead land. The people are strange and it is a place of nothing living. Only the dead walk there." I didn't understand what he meant and I was glad he could not see that it bothered me to no end.

"I'm strange and you like me and I need to go there. My mother went there once and I need you see if something there can tell me how to get home. The war three years ago ended there. I want to see for myself if maybe the people that attacked me where from there. I need to see it for myself." Kaen stopped just before the wall that divided the palace grounds from the city outside.

"They are not the same people… The people that came and attacked you, the ones that were both here and not here were like the Fanelian, but different in two ways." He raised his hand for me to see and held up a single finger. "They are of the same blood the Fanelian and the men who hid between the shadows… the other is that while King Fanelia and the men walk and breath, only King Fanelia is of health. The other men are sickly… I could smell their death." His second finger rose and fell with his hand.

"So they were the men in my dreams. The dying Draconians…"

As if struck by the oddness in Kaen's abilities, a black bird squawked from a nearby tree and took flight leaving behind a few feathers that were jet black; then suddenly it was a thousand black feathers I saw. They twisted and turned in an acrid smelling wind that carried the smell of blood and the sound of flapping banners. Green and silver cloth snapped in the air and row after row of men and woman baring arms strode passed me. All of them had black wings outstretch as if ready to take flight.

And then I looked down from my perch in the sky and shouted.


	26. Chapter 26

Kaen was always there to shake me out of my dreams and the dream was always the same. It was as if the moment the Praktu had gotten into my head they had unlocked the ability to recall my nightmares.

"I do not know what to do with you… You need sleep and to heal, but you do not rest when you sleep. I wonder if I should not bring Hurin back to the Fanelian and the child King." I glared at Kaen and looked away as his cold hands redressed my bandages. Blood caked them into a hard wad and I watched yet another mass burn in the fire. The painkiller I had lifted from Millerna are all that kept me on Kaen's back and on the move. When I felt that I had used too much we would rest and only long enough to sleep a bit and let the drugs filter through my system. I also wondered belatedly if the painkillers were some kind of hard drug like earth's heroin or something and if I should even be taking it, but when the pain kicked in I no longer cared and sucked them back.

"If you bring me back I will return you to Ragan…"

Traveling out of Asturia was a rather easy thing to do. Neither Kaen or I had the feeling of being chased and when we crossed the border we both noticed a stress disappear the neither him nor I could pin-point when it had settled in. The landscape changed quickly as a week passed by. We ate lite meals, but they were often and we slept only when we had to. The weather held for that week also and only on the eight day did it finally fail us and down pour. The entire day was wasted as I couldn't hold on in the wet and the bandages really did need to be kept dry.

"Keiki? What will you do when if I go home? If I can leave?" Kaen looked at me with a strange look.

"I do not know. I had intended to not return at all, but… I believe Ragan would need to know. I decided when the machine attacked the child king's palace that I would return with whatever news I had. Hurin is important to many." I seriously hated when he talked like this.

"Why do you think I am important? I'm just lost and trying to get home. I can't jump high trees or pilot a Guymelef like Escaflowne or even swim long distance. I don't see what you see." Kaen stood up and kneeled in front of me, his eyes boring into mine.

"Does the flower know it is envied by man? Does water understand that we covet it more than gold? Does the moon, even yours, know that it is beautiful and a source of light and life? No. I did not think you would see your own worth. That is another thing of beauty… and like you; you share a bond with all I have mentioned. You are the thorn from a moon far away and without you; many feel they may die… The Fanelian King has so many strange feeling for you. He feels obliged to keep you safe as a friend of your mothers and yet he does it of his own accord anyways. I have seen him watch you when you think you have a moment to yourself. They very way that you look at things he finds interesting. Like me. Like Ragan. He is also bitter. He does not like that you know what you know. He believes his past is no-one's concern… Then there is the Knight. He is also strange. He wants to help you so much and feels like he failed your mother so much when she was here. The… machine made him strange and he seconds guess much with concerns to you. The Child-like King is a mystery. So tentative with his own thoughts. He worries on much and cares too much… he will make either the greatest king or will fall to others with evil intentions…"

"Stop… How do you even know all of this? Where do you get off making these accusations of others?" Kaen leaned back and sat down, his legs crossed almost lazily before him while his elbows rested on this knee.

"I know… like I know the sun will rise every morning. Like you know that you had to leave… Like how you know that your dreams are not just dreams." His people were just an odd bunch. They were so light hearted and free, but when something serious came about everything was so serious and the way their eyes just stare into yours with such intensity… Wow.

"I think you may have it wrong. I'm like a shiny new book. Once the book has been read it no longer is of any use. The story is known and the book loses its purpose. I'm like that book. Once thing settle down I won't be so interesting.

"No. If you are like a book then it is an unfinished book and that makes the story even exciting. It is so new and everything so unknown that it makes those around them impatient for more." A change in topic was needed. ASAP.

"You and Ragan have poor taste."

I should have kept my mouth shut because the moment the words were out from between my lips, Kaen's moved into action. His kiss was nothing liked Ragan's because I could feel passion and inpatients mingled with the taste of the mint leaves he had chewed on after lunch. But just like Ragan's I was left bereft of thought. Had I not been a less than attractive human on earth I might have made an easy victim of a freaks motives, but alas here I was. Stunned into paralysis.

"Tastes fine to me." He moved back and walked away as if he's not just invaded everything sanctified by a girl of my age. People didn't just go up and do that on Earth! And despite all of that I could only still manage to think that the mint taste was now on my breath and made my teeth feel cold.

"What is wrong with you people!" It final came out. Human indignation took over even though I was screaming at my face to not be redder that it obviously was. "You can't just go and kiss someone like that! What if the person didn't want to be kissed? What if they don't feel the same way?" Kane sat down and poked and the small fire while his other hand popped in more of the mint leaves into him mouth. The sight of watching him chew was highly distracting.

"Does Hurin not like to be kissed? Should I have asked?" The answers turn to mush in my throat and I could only manage garbled attempts to explain. All of which ended with me walking away and him being demanded at all costs to not follow.

As if walking cured the raging embarrassment it surely didn't help my wound and my walk cut short in a clearing. The trees all fell away bleeding away into nothing but perhaps wheat. It stretched on for as far as I could see and behind that was a grey mass of something undistinguished. A sudden shock rocked me backwards and I gained equilibrium against a tree when I was rocked again and hit the ground which was wet. When my eyes focused again it was something I knew was not real, but my heart didn't know that and beat wildly as a large Guymelef soared over me and screams filled my ears.

"Keiki…" His name was said so weakly as I dodged a sword wielding soldier and another Guymelef rushed by. The steam from it was warm and damp while a sickly sweet smell wafted into my nose. It was the smell of blood again and I instantly retched.

"Van! Ignore the battle and find Hitomi!" My eyes swung and Escaflowne, Scherezade and a crimson Guymelef stood just over top me. "Celina!"

"This is Alseides…" I watched as Alseides lunged and the ground shook enough to topple me over. I could hear Dilandau's voice taunting while Van shouted. All around me people were dying and then I saw her.

"Mother!" The word peeled out of me as I got up and dropped again. The would had yet another tear in it.

"Hitomi!" Mother turned and faced me, looked right at me…

"Mother!"

"No one is here Hurin." The world snapped back into position like a slap to the face.

"She was. They all were. Van, Allen and Celina… so many dead. So much blood…" I retched again and Kaen gave me a moment to finish.

"This was the battle of Zaibach. Many fought here against the Emperor. His zone of absolute fortune ensured a bloody battle and so much was lost… Their bones lie just below the surface.

"Something I read once or twice… but we will talk about it later. We are being watched." I stiffened and realized he was right. I could see them as they weren't really hidden or anything. "These people are all that remains of Zaibach and the machine empire. They suffered the most after it still suffers because they have no chieftain." Keori doubted that the lack of ruler-ship is what ruined these people. It was the war that chocked there land with blood so nothing grew. It was the foreigners that came here and strip them of everything they had including the land they walked. This place made me want to cry and cry I did.

"Hurin, please. Stand up… we must go. It is not safe." But the scene had wounded my like the Praktu had not. I'd seen for years on television the effects of war and of disease

and hunger. Seeing it first hand was unsettling and tore the sounds out of my throat.

"Hurin please…" Kaen touched my shoulder and tried to lift me, but an unknown voice stopped him.

"The child is hurt and bleeding. I do have cloth that she can use to change the bandage and something small of her to eat. If she doesn't, she may die before you can get back to one of your cities in the south." A woman dressed in almost earthly clothes walked close and then held out a hand, palm up for Kaen to see. She had no weapons and just the fact that she was a woman and was gentle and sweet consumed me.

"I just wanted to go home!" The women held on to me and I hugged her as if she were my mother or my father. If I'd had brothers and sisters I might have hugged them this tightly too.

"She is not healing well?" Kaen must have nodded because he helped the woman lift me and to walk. "Stress is holding the wound open. She has to rest without such stresses… this may not have been the best place for her to heal sir…"

"Keiki… His name is Keiki." That got both Kaen and the woman's attention.

"Come then Keiki. I will treat you both. You can lie to her, but I am a healer of sorts and I have worked with the beast-tribes… You require rest as well, Great-One." Kaen stifled his abject denial and followed while glaring daggers at any so as to put the fear in them. He did not trust the people of the machine cities and that they had found them on the Battle field of Keori's mothers was just too much to set aside as coincidence.


	27. Chapter 27

"Stop fussing or I will leave it to rot… childish little cretin." Maren moved back and forth between Keiki and I while applying this or wrapping that. She brewed tea and drank it herself before either of us would touch it.

Maren was the elder of sorts of a small village that lived close to the ruins of the machine city or rather the battle field beyond. She explained about the fall of Zaibach and the war that took place and they things she had seen.

She had seen a lot.

"I do no fuss and it will not rot." Kaen yanked back his arm and I watched as he fought off sleep.

"Just rest already. I will scream the moment I even think I'm in trouble. Just go to sleep…" He listened against his own objections and slid down tot eh ground next to me and nodded off after only ten minutes.

"That one dotes on you. A life debt perhaps?" She smiled and shuffled about to clear a seat for herself.

"No… That would be easier to deal will I'm afraid…" I avoided looking at Kaen.

"Ah. I see. The beast tribes have a rather odd way of showing affection and love. They wear like a badge of honor while we hide it and place it in boxes from the world around." The woman looked down into her cup and steam rolled up into her face.

"It's embarrassing. Don't they understand?" The woman laughed and spilt tea onto her lap.

"They understand, but they don't care. Love is something they are proud of and they show it to others for the same reason a young lad might pick a fight with someone clearly bigger than they are. It's a display."

I dragged my hands down my face and then knotted them in my lap.

"Tell me more of what you know of the battle that took place here. It's interesting." Maren placed the cup down and looked a few seconds too long. "What?"

"You really aren't from around here. You talk like a Fanelian too." I swallowed hard.

"How can you tell?" Her eye brow rose and she pondered a moment.

"Asturians dance around questions, Freidians ask and Fanelians demand. You might form a question, but when you speak you expect to hear an answer and promptly. It's in your nature I suppose. You stand like someone of high birth, you head is held high and you walk like the world owes you." She laughed then. "But your hair is short and you talk like a man and as much as you demand, you are sincere when you speak. You're a noble aren't you?" I laughed then and woke Kaen in the process.

"Hurin?" He looked around with dodgy eyes.

"Go back to sleep… I'm sorry. I was loud…" He cracked his neck and sat back down with a scowl.

"No… not at all. I'm just willful as my mother would say." Maren chuckled at that and continued.

"Anyways… almost four years ago Zaibach was a prospering county. A man had come from nowhere and brought about so much change and new ideas that it changed the very surface of our country. We built houses and machines and our capital blossomed… then our growth moved in a different direction. Dornkirk made himself emperor and began to create odd machines that did not flow with the people. People began to go missing and black smoke rose from the towers of the capital. Dornkirk adopted strange men and they piloted Guymelefs… and other things. I saw a man once… he was a fearsome creature and silent. He would walk the streets of Zaibach…" Her brows pulled together and held her tea cup tightly. " He spoke little and only the children approached him. He had wings like a ravens and an arm made of Zaibach steel… Folken: The emperors right hand… The battle happened weeks after he disappeared. Guymelefs tore up the earth and after the battle, even though it rained, there was more blood and death and the rain and life. The prince of Fanelia, now King, was there as well as the Asturian knight Allen and our own Guymelef warriors. That menace was a frightening thing… I was young then and you could hear him long before you saw him. Delandau, I think he claimed a red Guymelef because it's color would never change in battle…" I watched her talk and the entire time I could tell she was talking from scenes she say playing out in her memory. She shuddered and I could tell her body almost wanted to run or dodge flying debris of the giant Guymelefs… She painted a terrifying picture. "We did not believe a lot of what we heard until months and months later. We had all heard of the woman that stood by the Fanelian prince's side during the battle. He had draconian blood that one, but the woman was later claimed to have been a demon or sorts for the mystic moon. She had brain washed the generals of four different countries into war and death and destruction. And I saw her the day the battle turned. She stood amongst the battle and different sides all fought for her it seemed and she had frightening abilities. She foretold things that had not happened… I was there that day. Saving the dying while risking being trampled underfoot… she had short hair too; like yourself… Next to Delandau, her voice was the next because it was a stark contrast to everyone else's. A woman on the battle field shouting while they made their way to the capital…"

"Enough."

"Keiki." Kaen stood up and pulled on my arm. "She should not listen to such things."

"And why not? Her King fought in this battle. It is not news to her…" The ground shook. "Her King came with his draconian blood and lay ruin to Zaibach." Kaen stepped close to the woman and silenced her with just his presence.

"She does not need to hear this. New or old, such things are not good to hear."

"Keiki!"

"No! You asked to come here to find the winged people that are coming. I would tell you what you needed to know of this place." He grabbed my hand and held it into his chest. "Hurin's mother's name was defiled here. Her words are lies in your ears and what she thinks she saw is poisonous." Maren dropped her cup.

"Lord Folken had women from the beast tribe with him… they served him to their deaths. Everyone died the year that woman came from the mystic moon. She came and lay ruin to everything in four countries. Do you think all four countries could end a war just like that with laying blame at one woman's feet!?"

"My mother saved your stupid world!" Keiki slid his hand over my mouth and pulled his arm down. "She was dragged her against her will and ended up saving you all you liar!"

"Your mother…? You're from the mystic moon?" Maren stepped back and into her table.

"It's called earth where we come from and we do not have magic powers of work spells. We are men and women, children and parents and we work, live, love and fight when we have to." The ground shook again and harder while I shouted at Maren. She had been so nice. She'd helped heal me and feed us both.

"Get out of this house draconian."

"I wish. It was humans that starts all of this. They fought against the Draconians until they all, but died out. They were nice people, caring people and they loved their children and their families. They didn't do anything wrong. People always try to smother what they can't understand and damn you for being such a shallow and narrow minded person. You are the ugly ones. You are the ones that deserve to be wiped out of existence and you had better hope I can find a way to stop the angry ones that still leave before they get here because you would be the first ones I came for if I _was _evil! Do you hear me?!" Kaen yanked me out of the house we both got yanked out of the air.

"King Fanel?" Kaen peered into the vented mask of the giant Guymelef Escaflowne.

"Why did you leave you silly girl!?" Van screamed out from the white armor.

"Put me down Van." I tried to pull free but I couldn't. He didn't budge and it just hurt too much when I tried.

"And you, you let her? She's injured and being hunted and you thought her safer with just you?" The Guymelef began to turn away while some of the villagers ran and screamed in fear. "Where a fricken target standing out here. We are going back to Asturia."

"Are you listening to me Van?! Put me down! How the hell did you even find me?!" The mask billowed steam and pulled down and away. Van sat strapped in and geared up. In his hand was her necklace.

"Your mother taught me long ago how to use this dowsing crystal. We are returning and you will stay with us. Else I will bring you to Fanelia across the sea and lock you both up until this is fixed." He glared at me and I freaked.

"Don't you dare. I'm not one of your people! I'm not someone you can boss around and tell them what to do! Kaen will always escape and he will always help me you pompous, arrogant little boy!" Van scoffed and gawked.

"Do you know who you are talking to? I am the King of Fanelia. I…"

"You're not MY KING! You're just some guy that liked my mother and didn't get to keep her. You're just trying to boss me around because I don't have to listen. Who do you think you are?! You're not my father or my brother, you're not a friend or teacher either so when I want your help I will ask for your help" Van looked taken aback and his visor slammed shut over him again.

"If you care one little bit for her, you will stay with us Kaen. Don't let her leave and dammit keep her safe. If I could find her, what makes you think the enemy wouldn't have? Make your choice. Help us keep her safe or watch her from one cell away." Escaflowne walked away from the village and whether from strain, pain or outrage I fought and lost the will to stay awake while both Van and Kaen kept their silence.

.

.

.

"You think you are the only one that gives a damn Kaen?... Your running around with her as if no harm can come to her, but she had been broken, attacked, nearly drowned and not even her mid is safe… I don't know why you let her do what you do, but stop it."

Voices… They are talking about me again…

"I do what I do because she asks it of me. You human's whether half draconian or not hid your heart and what is precious."

"We do that so others can't hurt what we love."

"Then why does Kaori hurt? Why is she not safe?"

Kaen never used me real name. I sounded strange when he said it… I'm cold…

Kaori opened her eyes a bit and all but screamed. She was thousands of feet above the ground and in the distance is what looked like one of Allen's airships.

"Because not everyone loves her. Not everyone can be your Chieftain Ragan or a beast tribesman with speed and strength. Some of us are only human are barely just. I can't protect her from herself… Trust me. I've thought about leaving her in a cell guarded by my entire country, but they wouldn't be enough."

"You love her too much King Fanel. It makes you act wrong." This was not a conversation I should be hearing at all, but it was hard not to when Escaflowne was in dragon mode and me and Kaen sat just behind Van. What I wouldn't have given for my iPod right now.

"Really? And taking her where every the hell she wants is right? You people are strange… she's just a girl. She's soft and doesn't know this world or its dangers. She's been thrown off cliffs, acted as a bloody whore at the Dancing Flower, chased, attacked… she's just a girl."

"No. She is a woman. She is strong and very smart, but you are right when you say soft…" Van swung around and instead of me being asleep and instead of him looking at Kaen, he looked at me. Kaen turned around as well and grinned. "This is better. Now you do not have to lie about your heart to Hurin."

"I will toss you off of Escaflowne if you do not shut up." Van had spun around and I could see his teeth grinding in his mouth from where I lay.

"Keiki! How could you say that to someone! It's no-one's business." _I'm going to kill everyone. I will split their throats while they sleep._

"It is not business, it is pleasure. Is kissing always business to humans?" _Oh my dear god. Can he shut up? Why won't he shut up!_

"Kissed…?" Escaflowne dipped in the air and Van turned around again. At this point I doubted blood moved through me because it was all resting in my head.

"That's none of your business!" _This isn't happening!_ I dug my head under my arm and hid my face from the world. Van got what he wanted now because I would never show my face ever again.

"Hurin… what is wrong?"

"SHUT UP KAEN!"

That was the last I spoke to either. We landed on the airship, Celina helped me down and I disappeared from sight. I didn't see anyone other than Celina and I didn't speak to anyone but Celina and when Celina asked what had happened, I answered her much like I did them.

"It's none of your business…"


	28. Chapter 28

Steps had been taken to ensure that I was left alone. Kaen, he was an idiot. So after he scaled the outside of the ship and dropped into my room from the window, I walked him out cursing and swearing and barred the door. He can almost every hour to talk with me and I was far from listening. Van didn't show up once than god. Celina was the only person I allowed into my room.

"You have not come out for two days. You cannot stay in here all day and night… won't you come out for at least a walk?" Celina was far too nice, but I could almost hear Allen's whispers in her ear.

"No. I won't go for a walk Celina. I won't leave this room ever and be damned to all of them.

"What happened that has made you this furious to not speak with Van or anyone? You have even banned your guardian from your sight.

"He's not my guardian. He's a perverted man who does not get the idea of personal space… anything personal for the fricken matter.

"Have you explained to him that it is so? Meryl was never one to respect others space until she got older and understood humans better… He hasn't been with people very often let alone women. It's to be expected that he would do such as he has, no?" Too forgiving… She was way to forgiving.

"I shouldn't have to explain. If I said I don't like it, he should have stopped. It's as easy as that." Celina smiled to herself and I turned away. She thought this was funny. Her, of all people.

"Then why won't you let Meryl or Millerna? They are woman too, with issues, especially Millerna, with men. She might be able to help…" I doubted it. Meryl was Van's little keeper and privy to his every thought and I didn't want to tell her, Millerna was supposed to me in love with Allen, but she hasn't won him over or anything. No one fricken understood.

"You can let them in, but I'm not promising I will talk to them at all. This is ridiculous… stupid."

It was all I could think about though. First Ragan, then his aid Kaen and now Van. I was a charlatan… and apparently I was thinking about it long enough that Celina opened the door to Meryl. I was hoping she would not have come and that only Millerna would have… guess not.

"Do you know you have half the ship in an uproar? What happened? The entire crew is worried and Van refuses to tell me. Are you hurt? Did something happen to Van?" Meryl's concern startled me. I had the crew worried… they shouldn't be concerned, nothing was wrong.

"Nothing happened Meryl. Don't worry about it…" She scowled and sat down.

"Then why have you locked yourself away from everyone, but Celina? Kaen is driving me, me, insane… he doesn't understand what the problem is.

"He did he tell you?!" I was going to kill him. Skin him alive and wear him as a scarf in some human fashion show.

"Tell me what? What happened? I want to know. If it involves Van I deserve to know." I doubted that she was that privy in his life.

"… It's nothing really… Kaen was being… umm… well. He wasn't minding his own business and he kissed me and it's embarrassing and he doesn't understand and Van found out while I was standing right there because men don't understand that this kind of SHIT ISN'T FOR THE WORLD TO KNOW!"

"I see… You have to understand. People of the beast tribes don't feel the same about love as humans do. We wear out love like a banner. Not much bothers us like it does humans… I think I can explain it to him though… you didn't need to lock yourself up like a martyr though. I'm sure Van didn't care." I slid my head into my hands and rubbed my face. I couldn't help but think to myself 'she doesn't know the half of it…'

"What are you going to tell Kaen?" She smiled and pat my shoulder as she got up.

"You won't understand. It's like him not understanding you. You won't understand this just as much… but it will work."

"If you say so." _How does she know I wouldn't get it? She acts like she knows everything. Like hell she does…_

I'll come back later once I smooth everything out… and go for a walk. The crew think you are being held captive or something and want to break you out." She laughed and the door swung most the way closed before opening again.

"I got the thumbs up form Meryl. Can I come in?" Millerna stood at the door and I nodded. She had to look over my wounds anyways.

"I heard from outside. You want to tell me the whole story?" She sat down next to me and lifted my shirt a bit and poked at me here and there.

"Van doesn't become silent over little things and he's being just as odd as you are. He doesn't leave his room unless it's to work on Escaflowne here and there. What happened?"

"This is stupid…" I didn't want to talk, but it was driving me insane.

"Those are the hardest things to talk about I find. That and love… Can't get people to talk about that if you have a sword at their throat…" She really wasn't helping at all.

"You know what. Never mind. You got most the story anyways. If you want to know that bad; talk to Kaen. He'll spew everything I'm sure." Jerk. Jerk. Jerk.

"Alright, alright… Well your wounds are healing nicely, but you have to take it easy. Unfortunately for you…" She smiled. "I recommend a few days in bed. You're exhausted still and the wounds could use an easier time healing. Gallivanting across Gaea wasn't the best thing for it… not so soon after." She stayed for a short while and talked with Celina. From the look of it was about Alseides because Celina started to take on a rather stern look whenever it came about. Having doctor's orders to continue hiding in my hovel of a room gave me extra time and I was going to catch up on sleep while I could. There wasn't much else to do anyways.

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.

'_Keori? Keori.'_

'_Mom? That you?' I walked through what I knew had to be a dream. Everything was dark except the path that I walked on and it was only showed me the way once I was close and it disappeared just as fast behind me. _

'_Keori…'_

_A door open before me and suddenly I was standing in my living room on Earth. Mother sat with her hands on her lap, sun breaking through the pale curtain that hung from the front window._

'_How are you doing?' I wondered what kind of dreams this was. _

'_I'm fine, I guess. I miss you. I want to come home.' She smiled slightly and moved her hands to the table. When her hands moved back and away, her tarot cards sat before her stacked perfectly._

'_It's hard isn't it? It was hard for me too… but I can help a little. I can help.' Slowly I watched as mother shuffled her deck, she made no sound and she sat down four cards. 'The first is a path you can walk that will taint your choices from here on out. If you follow this path, of the empress, all of your decisions will come back to this one thought, that one thing that you hold some important. The empress is a resolute ruler and represents the body, the senses and love; undying, honest and pure. That does not mean that the choice will be easier for it… the seven of cups denotes just how hard this choice will be and yet how naturally it will come to you. The future I see here is not written, but it is growing stronger and is that natural outcome of your future and do not think that it is set in stone. The future is always changing. It is what you make it. The cups represents a lack of reality, but in a world outside our own, it could make all the difference for you. Keep hold on your dreams and don't let them go. The three of Swords… __Awful as it may sound, pain is often necessary in your life. If there was no pain there would be no challenge and life would be ultimately pointless. Pain is a great motivator because it encourages you to surmount obstacles and return your life to the way it was before. The pain may cloud your vision for a time, but it the end it will allow you to see clearly, and to put the past behind you… and the last card is the King of Wands._ _He not only dispels his own fear but that of others, by ensuring them that they shall succeed. He is not all talk, though; when the going gets tough no one hangs in there longer than he does. The King of Wands has a deep and innate respect for other people, and his compassion extends farther than most people would expect. For a King, he has a remarkably good relationship with the common people. When he is unable to assist by himself, he will empower and enable others to help in his place… it sounds like you are going into war… I have dreamt things. I've seen the sea rise up to swallow you. I've watched you walk through a normal die without seeing the shadows plucking at you were ever you go and I have seen an army with black wings and I've seen Van.'_

'_I want to come home. How do I come home?' Hitomi smiled._

'_I don't know. It was never really clear to me why I came to Gaea and left. I did so much and changed just as much… I love you, honey. I miss you. Be safe… please be safe… and be nice to Van. You are stronger than I was; you have so much going for you. Explain things when they don't understand because they will all help keep you safe…' She looked away of a moment. 'And tell that beast-man to keep his hands off you. Tell him I saw what he did…' _

'_Mother!' _

'_He's easy to love… all of them are.' She continued to look at something I couldn't see as if she just couldn't talk to my face about this. 'Be safe. I will try to see you again…'_

_A giant door swung closed in the middle of the living room and shut out everything. Mother was gone, the sun coming through the window and the tarot cards we gone…_

"Let me in… please Celina." I woke up and realized I'd slept long enough that it was dark out. "Celina…"

"What the hell… Millerna?" I got up and walked over to the door and opened it. Millerna was still dressed in her day clothes and she was red.

"I've made a mistake. I'm sorry." Another bang came at the door.

"The blazes…"

"Keori!" I backed away. I don't know who was on the other side of the door, but they ere pissed.

"I asked, not realizing… you said I could ask Kaen so I figured I'd just ask Van and he exploded." I hate everyone on this planet. All of them. "I didn't know what to do… What happened?"

"Keori! You yell at other people for doing stupid things and you talk about that!" I opened the door and tried to shut him up. She didn't know, he didn't know. No one fricken knew and he was about to blab everything. "Y-You told her!?"

"I did not! I didn't say a blasted thing so shut up Van!" He was freaking out.

"I don't believe that you seduced Master Van!" Meryl came around the corner an stopped dead in her tracks.

"Not a word, huh?"

"Meryl!? What the hell!" She said she was going to get Kaen to back off, not dive head first into my personal affairs.

"I what!?" Of for the love of…

"Meryl!"

"Master Van…" Now she knows how to be quiet. Sheepish and everything.

"What did she tell you Meryl? Tell me."

"I didn't tell her a thing! She spoke to Kaen!" Van's face turned red and not from embracement.

"Keori…" Millerna stood at my back and I could only guess how sorry she felt right now. She damn well better feel fricken sorry.

"Oh my god! Listen to yourselves! Fine you all want to know? I'll tell you!" Van paled and Meryl looked away. Celina touched my shoulder to try and get me to stop, but it was done now. "Kaen kissed me, I don't feel that way for him. Van got pissed cause he likes me and I overheard him talking and I hid to avoid ALL OF THIS, But no… I told Meryl to explain to Kaen about PERSONAL SPACE…" I glared at Van. "And she came back yelling at me that I _seduced _him! You freaked out and got all high and flipping mighty about it and the only one that hasn't heard anything of out peachy little group affair is Allen!" Celina cleared her throat and explained why everyone was looking at me like I was a creature to be pitied.

"…My brother sleeps across from us. Said it was best encase anything happened…"

I turned around and walked back in my room taking Celina with me.

"And that's why I didn't want to talk about it. Because it was no-one's fricken business!"


	29. Chapter 29

No one and I mean no one came to see me now. Kaen ceased to exist, Allen avoid me like the plague, Meryl ignored me, Millerna knew better than to ask and Celina… she questioned me relentlessly. All I wanted was to recall the dream that I'd all but forgotten…

"… I saw my mother last night." Celina looked up from the window and waited. "She told me something important, but I can't remember. I never remember my dreams… Was it real or just that; a dream and nothing more…" It had been the fifth day since being dragged back from the village on the boarders of Zaibach.

"I miss her, did you know? She was the only one, to date, that saw me as a whole person." She eyed the floor as if the dark and torn planks could answer all her questions and worries. "She saved me. I haven't spoken to many about this, but I wouldn't have told your mother if I'd have the chance… I wanted to tell her. I felt she would understand the most… I was taken as a child and raised in Zaibach. I watched the country flourish under the emperor's rule and then something happened. It was slow, but I saw it everywhere I went and influenced everything it touched. It was like a sickness. It affected Dornkirk the most and filtered down into everyone else. He found Van's brother afterwards and gave him a new arm… the old one had been taken by a dragon... I was generally ignored, my caretaker cared so much for me, but he couldn't stop what was going to happen…" Celina started to cry and bit and jerked as if fighting off the memory. "They took my memory from me. They turned me against my brother… I have these visions in my mind sometimes. Of taking off and flying into the sun, the world burning and of blood. I see mostly blood." She touched her face where a faint line marred her face. I was pale; a scar that ran down her check. I'd never thought to ask her where it came from. "I woke up on a battle field. She stood out like a sore thumb. "Celina chuckled. "Bright pink, she was covered in dirk and the cloths that had once been fine were torn and shredded, yet she was like a beacon. I saw her and I wanted to attack her, hold her, tell her everything and hurt her. I was so confused…"

"What did you do?" She seemed to be fighting with something. She jerked again as if something had grabbed hold of her, but she remained sitting and staring.

"I tried to kill her. I wanted to. She was allied with that Van and Allen and they were the enemy of Dornkirk… I would have killed them." She looked at me and for a second I thought to myself; this isn't Celina. She sat differently in the chair, as if it were a throne and not just a wooden seat, her eyes stared with intent behind listless lids.

"But?" I wanted very much to get up and walk to the door, but I couldn't help feel that it would set her off.

"But?" She ran her hand threw her hair and then caressed the pale scar. "I was thinking… I haven't hunted dragons in a long time." Her eyes passed to the window where Escaflowne and Scherezade stood tied down in the open cock pit. Some of Allen's men worked on the narrow catwalks and I watched Celina's hand tighten around the arm of the chair.

Van had walked into to Guymelef docking zone.

"Alseides doesn't work yet. Remember?" Like a being zapped with a cattle poker, Celina jolted upright and out of the chair.

"W-What?" Celina stuttered, her face clouded with concern. It almost looked as if her own insecurities had pulled her back from whatever was happening. "You weren't supposed to see that. I didn't mean it!"

Celina was fighting with the other side of herself. The side the was Delandau Albatou and pilot of the Guymelef Alseides and enemy of Van and Allen alike… not to mention my mother. Everything in the world was falling apart, it had been since I'd shown up and it was only getting worse.

"How long has this been happening Celina? Tell me or I will tell Allen." The threat hit home and as much as I felt like shit demanding it of her, I didn't feel wholly safe with her flipping between herself and a pyro-manic that had a fetish of blood and gore.

"Not long! I swear!... Only sometimes. When I think about the past… I can hear him in my head." She started to sound hysterical and I sat her down. "I don't belong he says. I'm weak and I'm good for nothing. I can't pilot Alseides! If I do, he'll come back. I know it! He'll kill everyone."

"Celina. Shut up for a second. The entire ship will hear you!" I hissed and pulled my hands down my face. _God dammit. God dammit._ "Don't you understand? You lived part of your life as the man Delandau. Do you think he would just disappear? He was you! If you don't come to terms and fix this, he's going to take control because you aren't. You think you can just up and change or erase something that has defined the way you chose to live ever since? I think if you take control, stop running form everything and stand on your own legs. You might, you might just get control enough to master yourself…" I sat down and thought about and god did I sound like Dr. Phil. "Stay here for a bit. I need to see Millerna and think… I mean it. Stay here and don't think too much on it or I can guarantee Allen will find out of his own accord…" _You couldn't have had a soft bunny as an alter ego or a flipping super hero. No. Just a pissed off freak. _

This entire world is going to go up in flames around me and I'm never going to get home…

_Let's conclude. Stuck on alien world invisible to Earth. People of earth are generally thought evil and my mother especially. I'm being chased by blacked winged men, Celina has a serious mental handicap, Van is supposed to be my best hope to getting home as far as my mother is concerned, Kaen is a big asshole, Millerna… she'd alright and Meryl. Meryl I am ready to ring her neck. Oh, Allen too. He's alright. Miss anything?_

I gathered my wits as frayed as they were and made my way out of my room for the first time in almost a week.

"Stupid people…" I was one of them, but like hell I was going to openly admit that. Pfft. Not happening. Either way I walked about the ship trying to figure out what I was going to do. My 'friends' were falling apart all around me for one reason or another.

_Almost killed. Twice. Can't forget that._

"If I could just clear my head for one fricken second…" I walked out into one of the loading docks. This one didn't carry the Escaflowne and thus Van was not present.

"Oh. Miss Keori. Glad to see you out and about." A few of the ship hands nodded or spoke to me and as I had been told, they had missed me I guess. Must be the whole 'other world' thing.

"Uh-Yeah. And how is everything here?" _What they hell do they want from me? _

"Well enough. We've been circling Asturian airspace for a while since your return. I have to ask… I've been wondering, if you don't mind…" I had no idea what he was going on about. "I knew your mother… I'm one of the few that know the truth about what happened between us and Zaibach… What I wanted to ask is if you had the same kind of Mystic Moon powers Hitomi had? It came in handy a few times and I just wanted to know that if whatever we are getting into, if we have extra help." He knew my mother. He _knew_ he still does.

"I will do what I can. I have some skill and I see some things in my dreams… but I can't make any promises. I don't have my mother's power." That seemed good enough for him.

"Here that boys!? We got some mystic powers on our side too." Men I hadn't really seen popped up from behind pipes and large machinery. I had taken the sounds for the workings of the ship, but I was very wrong. The man put his arm around my shoulders. "You ever need anything me and the boys have your back. You just ask for Geddes… Back to work! You're in the presence of a Lady of the Mystic Moon!" His arm slide of me and I walked away while trying to avoid every eye that was now on me. I left quickly.

"Keori… A word?" Allen stood at the door. He took up the entire frame. _Like I have a flipping choice…_

"Yes." I followed him and he opened the door to what had to be the main control room of the airship. No one else was there. "What do you need?"

"I will not ask about the explosion outside my rooms. Nor will I inquire as to what started this all. But I need a favour… My sister has taken to you. She listens to you and I know you have spoken to her about the Guymelef Alseides." He didn't like where the conversation was going and I hadn't said anything yet. "She has asked to go and see the Guymelef. I need you to make her change her mind. That Guymelef will bring back memories that will haunt her. Things she had not right doing let alone seeing and doing. She doesn't recall that well. I need you to fix this mistake you have made."

_He's an idiot and he's the reason she has spiralled the way she has._

"No. I can't. Do you know?" Nuke time. "Do you know that she's knows everything? She remembers the man named Delandau and she understands that it was her hands that were bloodied? You have sheltered her, protected her and fought for her, but you failed! She didn't need protecting! She needed someone to talk to and you weren't there! You sheltered her and hid her away. You isolated her and she couldn't heal form her injuries. They were never just physical Allen. "His face twisted into complete shock. Hopefully it was from the information and not me speaking to him like I was. "She's a woman! Not a doll! We have waged wars, won kingdoms, trespassed into other worlds and fought inner demons all without your help. We've gotten our hands dirty and born the best of men from our own bodies. Celina is a warrior first, a woman second and your sister last, so stop acting like everything comes down to just you." Definitely shock. "You can't help her if you shut her out from the world. She can't fight a demon if you never let her see it, otherwise one day, when you're not looking, he'll come for her. Delandau will surface and you'll have no way to call her back because she won't trust you because you've never given her a reason to… She…"

"That's quite enough Keori." _I don't get breaks in this world. Ever._

"Van…" Allen spoke, but his voice was dry and tart.

"I have to admit. I'd never had said as much to you in such a way, but you have to see she's telling the truth. And as much as you don't like it, we do need Alseides."

"I would talk with her a bit… see what you can get out of her willing before you press the matter. " Allen was all but coiling into himself. He was obviously revolting inside with the very idea.

"I will think about it if you think on what I have said." I nodded, but I wasn't going to. Celina had all the information she really needed. The choice wasn't ours and it never had been. Why had I been so freaked out before? _Crazy person locked in with her maybe? _Oh yeah… Both Van and I watched Allen leave and that awkward silence set in. I wanted to bolt.

"About what I said on Escaflowne." _Here it comes. I'm not ready to deal with this crap._ "It was not meant for you to hear. I meant only to make your aid understand the risk he was taking."

"Was it true?" _Shut up Keori! You idiot! Stupid, stupid, stupid!_ Despite the hesitant look on his face his continued.

"I won't pretend you heard wrong. Take it as you will. I would explain that your mother and I never had the relation that you believe we had. There was love there, but she's was a great friend and helped save my entire kingdom. That is worthy of love." He looked at me and I wanted to curl up and vanish. I can't stand be stared at.

"Ok. I believe you." _Just go away and stop staring at me! My God! There are other things in this room you can look at…_

"This belongs to you. I have not managed to give it back since I used it… and as for Merle. She has been reprimanded for her comments. This will not happen again. It was an embarrassment to me as well as the entire ship." He came towards me with his hand clenched. My necklace hung from between his fingers while swinging with every step he made. I was going to take it from him, but he walked behind me and looped the necklace over my head. _This is the most embarrassing thing I have even been through. Could you imagine boys doing thing on Earth? Oh god… Hurry up and put the necklace on so I can hide somewhere already. _

"Thank you." _Great. If he looks at my face, it's going to be bright fricken red. This is just great and what's worse? He's not even a boy. He's older than me and a flipping King. I'm going to have mother's head…. Like I'd ever tell her. If I ever see her again…_

"This does not change the fact that I will do what I can to get you home." I turned and couldn't make myself look at him. Couldn't do it and I tried.

"Van… I'm sorry for making y…"

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.

I got lightheaded and teetered on my heels. Van held me straight, but his hands made my skin burn. My head emptied of thought and I couldn't fill it with anything.

"Keori." My heart beat angrily in my chest and it almost hurt. A sensation ran up my arms and down my legs and all I could do was stand there and realize this one simple thing what seemed so important and yet lost to me altogether. "Your necklace…" One of his hands moved to my neck and the fire ignited again while I stood paralyzed. Didn't he notice? "I'm sorry… that was presumptuous of me. Forgive me." He stepped back and walked away. I barely noticed until Merle took my hand.

"I've seen him do a lot of things. I've never seen him kiss someone before though. Don't hurt him. Don't hurt my Van… by the way… you're necklace? It's cracked again." I didn't hear a thing.


End file.
